


Like an Iron in the Forge

by lousy_science



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), DC Cinematic Universe, DCU (Comics), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Activism, Alternate Universe, Anarchy, Angst, Gangs, Gotham City - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:37:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lousy_science/pseuds/lousy_science
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Blake is sixteen years old when he sneaks off from the boy’s home to attend a party downtown run by a protest group. That’s where he meets the mysterious leader of a new underground movement who has some big plans for Gotham - and for John. </p><p>Mid-1990s AU set in a city with no Bruce Wayne or Batman, where John finds role models in not entirely wholesome places. Title from Aeon Flux.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The will to evil is like an iron in a forge, there is only one way to shape it right - with a conscience which is the fire – Trevor Goodchild

 

 

John felt more out of place with every step. Walking at the back of the group, he kept his feet steady, resisting the urge to catch up with the ash-haired kid at the front. He had only been invited along on the shakiest of loyalties, and, going by Andy’s nervously hitched shoulders, the older kid could suddenly turn around and send him back to St. Swithin’s.

Originally he hadn’t been invited. But it had been John who’d worked out a way for Andy, DeWitt, and Ty to sneak out of the boy’s home to go to an underground party in an abandoned building. It took him lot of work, snagging passes for an all-night homeless shelter volunteer evening, but John had done it. Then he had managed to convince Andy that his was a much better plan than Andy’s idea of him and his two best friends all faking a highly infectious disease. If they pulled that crap in reality Father Reilly would just call Dr Tompkins to check on them.

It had been a week-long hustle for John, which included making up detailed plans for their homeroom teacher about an extra-credit project. He felt guilty for the level of deception involved, and all day he had vowed he would do something to make it up to the shelter – go scrub their kitchen one weekend, maybe. But as soon as he’d heard Andy boasting about this illegal party, something had burned inside him. He’d never been invited to a party since he’d been at the home, and his last set of foster parents had enforced a 5pm curfew – or else.

Andy heard about tonight after he’d started hanging out at a place called The Data Lounge last month. It had taken him two weeks to work up the courage to walk in. John knew about it, because while Andy’s crew at St. Swithin’s was Dewitt and Ty, he and Andy always pulled laundry duty together. Three years of dirty sheets and sorting through socks and underwear had forged some kind of a bond. They were never BFFs, but after a while they’d started to tell each other most of every little detail about the day they’d had.

This Data Lounge place was run by an anarchist information organization that called themselves The Fire. John thought that ‘anarchist organization’ was an oxymoron, but he bit his tongue as Andy kept going on and on about all the truth he was absorbing and the new world order.

According to him, they could hook you up with anything – “sharing to the people”. And weren’t they the underclass? John could hardly argue with that, knowing as much as they all did about government cheese and wearing someone else’s old clothes. He snuck looks at the zines that Andy smuggled back, reading about crushing the system and going off-grid and the State Panopticon and how information wanted to be free. He wished passionately that he could get on the internet and check out all the web addresses listed, but at school computer time was restricted to twenty minutes per student to be booked a month in advance, all depending on whether the phone lines were up to it.

Eventually John went to the Lounge itself. It was at the back of an old pet store, accessible by an alleyway, easy enough to find if you worked out how to read the graffiti tags right. Once inside, he understood why Andy liked it here so much. The sweet smell of weed hung over everything, along with the ripe tang of unwashed teenage bodies. People were draped over the chairs that held up the bookshelves, drinking coffee and smoking. Some of them were girls. College girls. Andy’s newfound political awakening began to make a whole more sense.

Ty and DeWitt’s interest was obvious, too. John never heard Andy talk to them about the apparatus of conformity, or the ultimate need for violent resistance. Just whispered conversations about “…this one babe, Alison…” and “Extra-strong kush, bro. The best.” Once Andy started yapping on about this one huge party “at the spot” that he’d been invited to, John knew he had one chance at being the guy who’d get them all there.

‘The spot’ turned out to be part of an undistinguished stretch of mid-century Gotham urban sprawl on dimly lit street that stank of uncollected garbage. They stopped across from an old shop front for a boarded-up Korean bodega. A shuddering bass beat could be heard coming from somewhere deep inside. A huge graffiti piece covered the steel shutter that hung over the front. It looked something like a skull, surrounded with the bloated words: _I Will Rise._ Below it the tag read BANE. John had seen rougher versions of it bombed around the neighborhood recently.

The four of them curled into a small knot across the road. Andy told them to be cool, and he threw a sharp look at John. Ty wondered how they’re going to get in. “Where even is the door man?”

Andy jutted out his jaw. “Just let me figure this out.”

John realized he had no idea, either. He spoke up, “At the side, there’s a door under the tarp.”

  
“How would you know, Blake? You been here before?”

John shrugged. “No, but that’s how most of the hole in the walls on the East side work. String a tarp over the door when you’re open for business.”

The others looked unconvinced. DeWitt sucked in his breath, about to say something, when a couple in roughed-up leather jackets swaggered down the middle of the street. Leaning into each other, they laughed, clearly drunk. They swung around to the side of the building, lifted the tarpaulin and ducked inside.

John followed Andy’s brisk walk in, not saying anything.

 

 

 

Inside, it was smoky and muggy, the knocked-through spaces surprisingly big. There were six rooms, the biggest with a blaring sound system and a heaving mosh pit. A couple of rooms held kegs and overflowing coolers of high-end spirits, watched over by glowering punks. Everywhere else was full of milling people, broken down couches, and people hunched over bucket bongs.

John had clung to the walls, watching and working out the pecking order of the groups. Andy had dusted them immediately, bouncing up to a group of college kids and yelling “Hi!” a little too loudly. John knew they had to be from Gotham U  – their white kids dreads were neater than the more authentically grungy hippies. DeWitt and Ty were more circumspect, nervously asking a bored goth operating a keg if it was OK to have a beer. Eventually they settled down with a joint on a moldy settee with two girls and a much older guy.

Walking Gotham streets all his life had made John a good people-watcher. He counted several distinct levels of operations at the party. He could see the straight edgers standing away from the potheads, the pretty girls in the billowing tie dye skirts adroitly avoiding the dead-eyed men in trench coats, the mangy punks, the newer, shinier breed of cyber geeks, and then the real criminals – John was sure he could pick them out, how they either worked the room or blew through it like a breeze, giving the impression they had to get somewhere else, immediately.

Moving through room dividers made with strips of packing plastic, he tried to stay unnoticed. The music was coming from the back, loud and bass-heavy, and there were more guys in here than girls. Most eyes floated past John, but one guy in grey leather cut him a look like he was a narc. That was how he ended up skittering over to the darkest corner and finding a stair case. Climbing it, it felt like it was being held up with hazard tape and staples. Trying to keep his balance John set his eyes in the middle distance, making like he was thinking of something other than how out of place he felt.

Upstairs was darker. The sound of the party dropped away. Tripping on a mattress, he almost fell over a passed-out guy wearing black and white face paint. Creeping past him to the next door way, John found the first closed door he’d encountered. The door handle turned easily enough, and John walked in to a space that looked like a computer lab in a shanty town.

There were tech parts everywhere, some organized against the wall in plastic crates, some spread out on plastic wrap. The main light source was the neon sign from across the road which covered everything with a sticky-looking yellowish glow.

He picked over some of the hardware, very definitely avoiding the cupboard at the back which was humming like a beehive and was clearing running something big. John was curious, not stupid. But this other stuff was still interesting to him, for the variety alone. Most of the gear that was being used here had to be only a year or two old, but had been battered like it’d been taken into a warzone. The mint stuff, the product that he figured financed the set-up here, looked like it was top of the range. He worked his way from box to box, trying to work out the supply chain process. There was no way some ratty anarchists could afford these processors, even used, and after looking at the quality of the booze on offer downstairs John had suspected that the people running this squat were living off more than lentils and ideology.

Dealing to college kids, stealing tech to order, it made more sense to John than Andy’s idea that the whole operation was funded by weed and good vibes. With a light click he popped off the back of a cell phone to check that that the serial numbers have been scraped off. They were gone in a scrape of grey.

He laughed at the sheer efficiency of their illegality. “I knew it.”

It masked the noise of the person stepping up behind him.

“Find something interesting?”

John jolted like he’d been struck.

“I just – ” He spun around, face to face with a giant chest. It belonged to a pair of massive shoulders, which were attached to a hooded head that looked down at him over a bandana wrapped over it’s mouth. John raised his hands to plead like the Catholic boy he was.

“Wasn’t stealing! Just curious. Just wandered in here. Not stealing, not gonna narc, I swear, I – I like computers and never get to see them except like in magazines or the library, and god, I swear I am not trying to rip you off.”

 

A hand slammed the concrete wall next to his head. The hood didn’t say anything, just let John wriggle back. He wanted to book it out of there, but he’d let himself get pinned. _Idiot_. He put his chances of getting his ass kicked to next week as highly likely with a strong probability of loss of limb.

Then the hood talked.

“What do you see?”

John gulped. His throat was dry. “I see – I see a system. Under the chaos, with the party and all the kids and the just stuff lying around like this. No one is going to rip off Bane and the Fire, unless they’re stupid, and you have a system for dealing with stupidity, I bet.”

The hood stayed quiet for a long time. John screwed up his fear and pushed it deep down in to his feet, ready to fall, roll, and run if needed.

When he replied to John, his voice was lower. There was more of an accent on the words. “What do you know of Bane?”

“His tags are all over this building, and this part of town. Even opposite my school. I heard his name mentioned by some people downstairs, too. Like he was a rockstar.”

“No.” Huge hands guided the bandana down. “Not a rockstar. They should be paying more attention.”

John waited silently, looking at the grey eyes peering at him.

“A leader,” The voice was lowered now, compensating for the small room they were in, “That’s what he is. Someone who plans.”

“It’s you.” John found his voice. “You’re Bane.”

He nodded. “I am Bane. You are a curious one. What is your name?”

  
“John.”

“John. Like the Bible verse. Do you play chess?”

He shook his head. He had wanted Father Reilly to teach him, but there was never time.

“You see, John, in chess as in all warfare, it is important to only let your enemy see what you want them to.”

John just stared up at him. He was feeling drunk and giddy. Bane and The Fire were a new presence on the streets, but he’d heard of them already and it felt like he was being interrogated by someone off of television or a magazine cover.

“Do you know how many secret CCTV cameras operate in Gotham? Do you know about the GCPD’s surveillance database? I’ve seen the processors they have ordered, enough to keep a record of every person who walks the streets. Once the system has you, it has you forever.”

It was straight out of one of those irate zines Andy had shown him. John tried not to smile. He felt light-headed as he replied, “Social services have my birthday wrong.”

Bane tilted back a little, giving him room to continue.

“It’s why I got put in a higher grade at school, they think I’m two months older than I am. Some years I get a card from my case worker. Once a foster family got a cake in for me, it was the nicest thing they’d ever done so I said nothing.”

John waited for Bane to say something about the system turning them all in to sheep, but he remained still, listening. He summed up, “Everyone likes cake, anyway.”

But Bane only shook his head in response.

  
“You don’t like cake?”

“Needless sugar.”

Which made John smile fully, because now Bane’s voice sounded slightly apologetic. Which led to a burst of confidence, enough for him to lean forward in to Bane’s breathing space and hover his hand in front of the hoodie.

“Can I see?”

It was a risk, but in the dim light he made out a _yes_ in the eyes.

“Why don’t you try?”

Reaching out a hand, he commanded himself not to shake. Bane ducked his chin to his chest, and let John knock the hem from his forehead.

He was a few years older than John, but not that old. His hair was clipped short like a Marine, and he had a day’s worth of stubble. John had taken in the intelligent glare of his eyes, but now could see the elegant cheekbones and the full mouth set in a still line.

“Thank you,”

“You pay attention. Many don’t.  But now you’ve seen me, John, and I don’t know who I’ve shown myself to.”

His intonation sounded a little like Mr. Garcia, the repairman at St Swithin’s. His arm was still braced against the wall next to John’s temple. It felt less like a threat now that John could see his whole face. It was surprisingly handsome, with clear skin and even features. There was nothing boyish about it, but he wasn’t that much older than John, he’d crossed the line to adulthood a just few years ahead of him.  

“I,” Unconsciously, John’s hand had hooked over Bane’s wrist. “I’m John Blake. I live in St Swithin’s, a boy’s home. Foster kid. I lied to the Father to get to this party tonight, because I never get to go to parties. The people I’m with aren’t really my friends.”

Bane’s face moved closer. “So why did you come with them?”

“I don’t really have friends. I want to know everything, but don’t want to tell anyone anything.” His thumb grazed the pale inner skin of Bane’s arm. There was a scar there, raised tissue. He wondered if it was a burn or a cut.

Father Reilly had warned him about this. When John’s fear of something died down and he was left with the rush, he was liable to make bad decisions. Like jumping down on to trucks from the 51st St Bridge, like getting in a fistfight with his last foster ‘dad’. Like sneaking in to parties and being pinned to the wall.

“Most people, I find, want the opposite.” Bane’s fingers stretched out to trace the length of his throat. Maybe he planned to strangle John and then dump his body in the river. John gulped.

“I don’t know anything, though. I want more, but the more I read, the more I find out…”

Bane bent further to raise his lips to John’s ear. “You find real knowledge always escapes from you?”

“I – I don’t get a lot of experience at things. There are things you can’t read about.”

He felt his heart skitter, and he knew for sure that it wasn’t just the fear any more. Bane looked like one of the wrestlers in the magazines they weren’t meant to have in St. Swithin’s. He was muscular and intimidating, and John knew that set off something dangerous in his mind. Something that led to sweaty nights after lights out and things that he couldn’t ever discuss with Andy in the laundry room.

A wall was at John’s back, and Bane was everywhere else.

“Just what kind of experience did you come here looking for, John Blake?”

He stroked up his neck and pushed his jaw up. John’s boner was colossally, painfully obvious.  Bane’s voice dropped down a register.

“The Fire draws many. Few can stand it, however. What should we do with you?”

John tried to stand as tall as possible without shaking. That’s when Bane’s lips glided over his. Screwing up his eyes instinctively he pressed his face forward. He’d never kissed a guy before, he’d never kissed anyone over the age of sixteen. He wasn’t really sure about tongues and stuff, but he didn’t get to think much as his jaw was squeezed, opening his mouth even further for Bane to taste him.

It was quick, not slobbery, and Bane angled his own head to make it easier. Then he gently pulled at John’s lower lip. His wider mouth was soft where they were touching.

Then a sharpness, stinging. Copper and bright light as John’s eyes snapped open.

“Uhn! Oh  – ”

Bane was still close, his eyes flicking between where John’s tongue was running over his mouth and up to his dark, astonished eyes. John was cataloguing the difference between this and being hit, and whether or not he needed to panic. Bane shushed him, his hand floating back to John’s face.

“I won’t hurt you again.”

John could only laugh as a calloused thumb rubbed the cut in his lower lip. “Everyone who says that lies.”

Bane breathed in slowly. “So you’ve learned that already. Well. I promise I won’t lie to you again.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

The rain had let up just before class ended, but the wind was still bitter as John walked downtown. Two days had passed and it was time for him to show up at the Data Lounge.  Somehow John didn’t think Bane was just guesstimating the date and time, or that John should consider his appearance optional.

 

Being blasted by the icy air was a welcome distraction from thinking, which was all John had been doing since the party. He’d ended up leaving alone, which had pissed off Andy and the others who’d claimed they’d waited for him “for ages”. Like hell they did, he’d thought. That was something that had changed since meeting Bane. Suddenly being liked by Andy wasn’t as important anymore. Having Father Reilly’s trust wasn’t an honor – it was an opportunity. He’d knocked on his office door and asked him if it was OK for him to visit the City Library for a special study group and got let off afternoon chores. Now the streets of Gotham felt more real, more his, underfoot.

 

The Data Lounge still stank of pot. It was busier now than that one time John had ducked his head round the doorway. Back when he’d had no idea that he could ever be invited in, or by Bane, of all people.

 

 _Whatever_ , he thought. Bane probably wouldn’t even recognize him.

 

At school, people had been talking more about The Fire, the gang behind the killer party which everyone claimed they’d been at. That they were real challengers to the usual two bit hustlers these Gotham kids were used to avoiding on the street, that they were being tracked by the C.I.A, that it was all just a front for a police sting, that their leader was a former mercenary soldier. John heard it but never offered his own opinion. There was no one at school he had to talk to, anyway.

 

Walking in, he made for the wall. It was his usual plan of action. Stay to the side and fewer people noticed you. The couches were covered in languid teenagers who barely moved except to pass a massive joint around. Music was playing out of a tinny set of speakers, something like heavy metal but speedier and with more lyrics. Every surface was covered in books and papers, and a few intense-looking readers were scanning the titles. There was a table with a coffee machine that looked suspiciously new, and that was surrounded by the biggest hive of activity. The room was fairly small, the size of one of his classrooms, and so noisy the wall at John’s side hummed.

 

“What happens when you enter the system – ”

“Constantly watching me, watching all of us – ”

“That’s why Bane keeps his face covered, you know,”

“- not on any official database, off the grid,”

“A guy in Maryland, can get your records scrubbed, no government trace, and a brand new ID, all for fifteen large.”

 

Someone threw a glance at John over their shoulder, sharpening it as if to ask, who are you? Like a sixteen year old kid in a Catholic school uniform was a potential agent for the Feds.

 

The double doors behind the coffee table swung open, and the whole room jolted at the noise.

 

John recognized them as some of the back room guys from the party, the tougher ones who were wearing cargo pants and German army coats, managing not to look like poseurs. One of them had an impressive black eye. They marched in, a mini phalanx, and following them was Bane. He had a bandana wrapped around his face again. But in what passed for daylight here, his eyes looked brighter. John barely had time to take his stature in – he’d seemed like a giant at the party, but he’d convinced himself that was his fear talking – when Bane stared right at him.

 

What was he, 6’3, 6’4? And loaded with muscle. And staring at John. And jerking his head back to the distant room as if to say: Come. Now.

 

Then Bane turned and left. All John had to do was get through the knot of stoners, conspiracy theorists, and super scary-looking gang members. He put his head down and moved. Jostling elbows and messenger bags, he rammed a pathway to the door and didn’t give himself time to think or strategize. This was Bane’s call. John felt strangely serene at giving up to his mysterious ways.

 

-

 

“And your last class on Thursdays is?”

 

Bane talked while walking out the space between the stacks of contraband tech boxes and the pool table that John was gingerly leaning against. It had been a matter of minutes they’d been in the narrow back room. Bane had been throwing questions at him as soon as the door closed, asking about his schedule, his school, St. Swithin’s. Initially John stumbled, wondering if The Fire were planning to break in to one of them, but swiping a look at the packed shelves of new hard drives, cell phones, and printers, he realized that in comparison with this haul none of his institutions had anything worth stealing. 

 

The atmosphere was made tenser by the two other guys who were circled the room. They seemed to be in the middle of some sort of stock take when Bane led him in, but they didn’t seem surprised to witness his interrogation, nor did they ever look at John or acknowledge his presence.

 

“Calculus. But I have to go to chapel directly after.”

 

Bane turned to look at him. He’d tugged the bandana down, but some of his face was still covered. This made John annoyed for no good reason. He kept talking, “Mondays and Tuesdays are good, I mean free - I have study periods, and they’re letting me leave to use the public library.”

 

“They let you?”

 

There was another, second question in Bane’s voice, but John couldn’t quite make it out.

 

“For extra-credit study, yeah. And, uh, I can miss a class here and there – ”

 

In truth, John rarely missed a class. Only if he was sick, or that time that Mrs. Gutierrez had really needed someone to look after Katie and he’d ducked out for three and a half hours.

 

Bane stopped him by addressing the other people in the room. “You – and you. Finish this later.”

                                                          

With one sweep of his hands, Bane sent them out. John tried to make eye contact with them on the way out, something friendly but steely. They didn’t look back. The black whirlpool of dread in his stomach churned harder.

 

Finally pulling the bandana away, Bane walked back towards John.

 

“You do not miss class. You should make perfect attendance, after all, you have no family to go home to, and not many friends.”

 

That was true, but it stung a little to hear it.

 

“And you are already in the system. Make the most of it. What is your GPA?”

 

John stuttered out an answer – “3.3” - as Bane motioned towards his school bag. He wanted to see his homework?

 

“I didn’t bring anything with me, I left it in my locker.”

 

“Later. Monday night. I have a task for you in the meantime.”

 

John’s heart jumped. This was the part when Bane was going to ask him to do something dangerous. Run drugs (he’d say no), or take subversive literature to school (he’d say yes) or suck Bane off (he…he wasn’t sure.)

 

Bane wheeled away from him and picked up a photo wallet from a pile of documents in the corner. He came closer to John again, carefully leafing through the pictures. It gave John a chance to examine his face. The rounded lips, the pale eyelashes, his heavy brow. Bane’s face didn’t make sense to him. It was like the pieces could never fit unless he was staring at them, and then when he got to really look, he was too breathless to register it all. Bane was perfect. It was upsetting.

 

“This. I want you to look for these.”

 

He held up a picture of a metal plate stamped on a manhole cover. Next to it was a small hazard sign next to it, and the logo of one of the local telecoms companies. John felt himself blinking rapidly, trying to make out just what he was looking at. He wondered if it was some weird conspiracy shit. Did Bane wear tinfoil helmets and see Satan in the background of cartoons?

 

There were more photos, half a dozen. Bane flipped them over and showed him the addresses written carefully on the back.

 

“You don’t need to take pictures, your memory will serve. This is just to get an idea.”

 

He looked back at him. John tried not to swallow.

 

“What – can I ask what they are?”

 

“Always ask, John. Blind followers encourage one-eyed leadership. These are markers for where fiber optic cables are being laid out by the city. There’s going to be a 300% increase in fiber over the next few months, which will make the internet connections in Gotham far more efficient. Which is the result of the chamber of commerce encouraging new technology in the city, and the needs of the financial district. It means Gotham will become one of the best-connected cities in the world.”

 

It was quite a speech. John still didn’t entirely understand.

 

“So why track the cables? Can you tap in to them?”

 

“No,” Bane said, as if he was genuinely bereft. “But no one tracks the cable to make the information public. If we make our own map, we can upload it, and everyone who is interested can follow along. The Web should be ours, not theirs.”

 

“Information wants to be free.”

 

It was written above the door of the Data Lounge.

 

“Not always. Sometimes it is resistant. Like people are. John,”

 

“Mmm- yes?”

 

Bane clapped a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Come on Monday . Not here. The corner of 110th St and Caspar.”

 

Then the hand lifted to John’s mouth. Fingers brushed over the cut on his lip, still raw because John could not stop biting at it, teasing himself with the memory. A glance down and then Bane was gone, storming through the doors and commanding some member of The Fire to another task.

 

As he listened to him leave, John realized how dry his mouth was. He sucked his lip again and tried not to smile.

 

-

 

 

The next time he saw Bane _,_ he had two folders full of homework assignments with him.

 

“So, that’s Algebra, and Calc, I prefer geometry but they’re OK. Spanish, I only started last grade so I’ve got a lot to catch up on. And I’m doing a report, for extra credit.”

 

He waved his battered library copy of The Iliad at Bane.

 

“It’s an epic poem about a war.”

 

“Yes.” Bane looked at him forcefully. “The Trojan War, and the hero Achilles, leading to the destruction of Troy and the events of the Odyssey. That is not a particularly good translation.”

 

John felt very small. They were standing in an alleyway that crept around from the intersection of 110th and Caspar. John had been looking forward to this the entire week, rehearsing what he was going to say over and over in his head until every throwaway line was polished like a diamond. He’d strutted up to the meeting place ten minutes early only to be yanked into the darkness by two strong hands. The first thing Bane had asked after was his homework. Two stocky gang members were leaning against the wall behind him, smoking blunts and throwing disparaging looks at him. They were different from the two stockroom guys at the Data Lounge, but only just.

 

“Follow,” Bane snapped and turned around. He was quick for a big guy. John’s shoulders slumped but he dutifully walked after the three of them down a flight of service stairs. It looked like it was a delivery entrance to the old hotel next door.

 

It was. And by the stench of rotten food in the corridor they stomped through, it hadn’t been occupied by paying guests for a while. The place was dark, dusty, and as Bane led them up to the ground level, clearly absolutely perfect for a bunch of anarchists. John let himself get excited looking at the freshly painted graffiti all over the wallpapered reception area, which appeared to have been pretty run-down even before it had been claimed by The Fire. The two hardasses who had been murmuring to each other on the way in had clearly been here before. Casually, they flicked their roaches into a bucket of sand left by what had been the reception desk. John noticed it was full of used cigarette butts and gum. So they’d been using this space for a while.

 

The corridor Bane was leading them down had carpet-lined walls. It was something John associated with funeral homes. He ran his fingers along it as they silently walked, idly thinking that if he ever got to come here again he’d bring something sharp and razor up the walls.

 

It struck him that he could. He could slice the place to shreds, kick over the sand bucket, piss on the stoop of the Centennial Hotel and no-one here would bat an eye. The constant violent impulses that always ranged just below his fingertips, someplace down inside that he was careful not to reach for, this place could be their arena. As far as The Fire was concerned, the whole city was waiting to be sacked. They tagged the walls of Gotham with slogans like ‘Free City’ and ‘Truth Burns’. They took what they wanted, from delivery vans, department stores, and the generous allowances of the trustafarian students who came to their parties. They didn’t care about the things school and foster parents and social services and Father Reilly cared about, and John was being invited to join them. Or he might be. He wasn’t quite sure yet.

 

The hallway led to a set of elevator doors. Bane turned, paying no attention to John as he gave instructions for the “product” to be moved to “sector G” and handed a set of keys over. They lurched out of sight, and John tried to remember how to breathe. Bane worked on the doors now, yanking them open like it was nothing.

 

Inside the shaft was vacant. John asked the obvious question.

 

“Where’s the elevator gone?”

 

“For scrap, or repairs. The hotel was shut for renovation, they went over-budget and bankrupted.”

 

“And it’s just been empty ever since? Why not sell it?”

 

Bane lifted his hand – _come over to me._ John closed the gap, peering down at the bottom, one storey below.

 

“My research suggests that the Bertinelli family were involved in the process.”

 

“Mob money? Think this was a front?”

 

Bane’s arm came around his shoulders at the same time that he reached to unhook a rope ladder from the wall.

 

“It certainly seems to be more convenient for them to have it empty.”

 

John nodded. “We climb?”

 

“Just so. Follow.”

 

Before he could say anything Bane had taken his schoolbag off of him, and started up the ladder.

 

 

It was like being in an arcade game. He scrambled up the ladder after Bane’s ferocious pace, his heart thundering. Bane led him to the third, and when he swung to get off the rope he was pulled to Bane’s side. Leaning against him, John took a moment to breathe through his mouth. Bane’s arm stayed around him as he lifted the bag back over his shoulders with so much care that John almost broke into nervous giggles.

 

Bane walked backwards, guiding him in. He did that a lot, John thought, giving directions with his body and not his voice.

 

The floor had been dismantled, more so than down on the ground level where the hotel’s façade was mostly intact. Bane’s rooms took up what had once been a hallway, three bedrooms, and the gutted en suite bathrooms that huddled behind the remains of knocked-out walls. What looked like a fire break had been erected hastily through the middle of the narrow building, with a bright metal lock holding the partition together. Windows were mostly intact but taped up with thin skins of butcher’s paper. Light came in from the holes in the far wall. John wondered about pests. He concluded that Bane would either scare them off, or try to unite them as an anarchist collective to rule Gotham as his personal army.

 

There was plastic sheeting pulled over one bathroom, presumably the one that had been nominated for use. One corner was dominated by a computer desk that seemed to have been Frankensteined together from several pieces of furniture, with two bulky monitors set side by side. Cords flowed like seaweed out of a football-sized hole in the wall. Nearby a double mattress was set up on top of a couple of wooden pallets. It didn’t look uninviting.  

 

“You took notes?”

 

John turned back to him. “Nine cable markers, all south-east of Central Ave. I didn’t get to go very far this week,”

 

“Nine is good. There aren’t many people on the ground in your area. Much of that information will be new.”

 

“How many people are looking for these things?” John asked as Bane took his jacket off and hung it up next to the computer. It was late afternoon, but the days were getting longer, and the room still held plenty of light. He could see that Bane was still wearing at least two layers, the late winter still pinching the air. It must’ve been freezing in here over Christmas.

 

“Not as many as those who want to know. The map is barely started, but our page gets dozens of hits a day.”

 

“Outside of Gotham?”

 

Bane nodded. “The fiber plan here will affect the behavior of the routers for two big exchanges. And the expectation is that where Gotham leads, others may follow. We will enter your coordinates today.”

 

The computer started up. Bane sat on an overturned crate watching for the signs of life to appear onscreen. It was the first time he’d taken his eyes off John since he had returned his bag. But John had been taken to people’s bedrooms before. He had some idea what they wanted from him when they got him there.

 

This time, he wanted something too.

 

John worked out every morning before the rest of his roommates woke. He did push-ups, lunges, sit-ups. It hadn’t made him big like Bane, but even if he was small, he was not soft.

 

Bane had rolled a cable spool next to his crate. John stepped around it and, moving too quickly to think himself out of it, made to sit on Bane’s knee.

 

It was solid as an oak bench. Two hands steadied him, and Bane raised his eyebrows at him. Before he could say anything, John clung to the front of his shirt and let his weight fall forward.

 

Leaning in, he spoke as his nose brushed Bane’s jawline.

 

“157th St and Second, St Teresa Church. On the kerb, a yard from a manhole.”

 

“John – ” The warning in the tone was countered by an arm snugly wrapped around his waist, anchoring him there.

 

Continuing blithely on, he started on location two. “The crossing outside Palmer’s Plants, on East Morrison St. Number 26. You’re not typing.”

 

“I will,” Bane adjusted his upper body minutely, letting the two of them curve into each other. “I believe I will recall.”

 

“Hmm. 167 Sanderson Hill Rd.”

 

A hand climbed up on to his right knee. John liked it, liked how there was nothing tentative or weak about Bane. They were both bundled up in clothes so they squished together, and now John could smell Bane, he smelled clean and warm under the city fug that hung on to coats and sweatshirts.

 

Bane pushed at the side of his face with his chin, gently nudging his mouth up. He looked so serious, while John was slyly smiling. It took a while for their mouths to match up because they began so slowly.

 

Behind them the door rattled. John pulled away and stood up, feeling out of breath and unready. Bane rumbled deep in his chest as he raised himself to face his two ‘brothers’, who were kicking boxes through to the room. They started asking questions and he walked over to direct them.

 

John stared at the computer, counting the cursor blinking on screen. One, zero, one. Zero. Behind him, conversation carried on about the particulars of the “fucking heavy shit” that was in those cardboard crates. He moved closer to the screen, acting as if it was taking up all his attention and not like he was tenting his pants. The words swam for a few seconds then straightened out: it was, just as Bane had said, co-ordinates for the new fiber cables.

 

Bane finished up with some further instructions and dismissed the grunts. John toyed with his bag, acting as if he’d just remembered something important in there. He made eye contact with one of the guys, and was surprised: he read contempt in his eyes, and studied detachment, but also a flash of envy.

 

Or maybe not. They soon stomped out.

 

“Should I go?”

 

Bane didn’t look up at him, continuing to rustle around in one of the boxes, which he’d carried over to a folding table set along one wall. It was the same kind of table that they used at the home for Church fundraisers, the ones that held the homemade cakes and donation tins.

 

“This evening is becoming complicated. I have to leave here myself, to meet with one of our suppliers.” He addressed the table top, still not looking over at John. The box’s contents sounded heavy.

 

Slowly walking over to the door, John hovered at the nearest point to the table.

 

“OK. Can I – I’ll see you around.”

 

“John, no.”

 

“What?”

 

Bane looked at him. Licked his lips. John had been inside them just a minute ago.

 

“This week will be – difficult. I will find you.”

 

Tightening his fingers on his schoolbag, John nodded. It felt like it would be uncool to say goodbye, so he walked out the open door without looking back.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

When you are sixteen years old and sharing a dormitory bedroom with five other teenage boys in a home where a Catholic priest runs a very tight schedule followed by an unbreakable ten o’clock lights out rule, whacking off is planned with military precision. Two nights after his trip to the hotel, John was at DEFCON One for self-abuse needs. That afternoon Bane had decided to get in contact. He phoned up the school office pretending to be his new caseworker. Mrs. Talbot, the principal’s administrator, called John out of second-period geography to take the call in her office. He staggered through the conversation with her inches away across the desk.

 

 “Uh, thank you, Mr Bane. For calling. I can confirm that I’ve not heard from Mr. Michaels in months. Thanks for taking such an interest. I _really_ didn’t expect to hear from you today.”

 

Bane made a scornful grunt. “Now tell me how you are going to do it. Will it be in the showers?”

 

“Certainly not, Mr. Bane. Our facilities at St. Swithin’s are very crowded. But I think,”

 

He glanced at Mrs. Talbot, who was reading her horoscope in the Gotham Gazette.

 

“- that the fuse box in the janitor’s storeroom has been fixed since the last incident. I can check, though. Last time it blew,”

 

Bane rumbled down the phone at that. John cupped the receiver in his sweaty palm, hoping that the sound didn’t carry over the desk. He was going to kill Bane for this. If he didn’t pass out dead on the spot as all his blood rushed south.

 

“And I managed to fix it around eleven thirty. Didn’t even wake up the young kids.”

 

They went on like this for about five minutes. John made up the straightest-sounding stuff he could in reply to Bane’s questions – which hand did he jerk off with? Had he ever done it at school? Didn’t he think the education system nothing more than a form of social control? Did he believe in God? Why does the church make him kneel? Did he like being on his knees?

 

Mrs. Talbot gave him a look when he hit himself in the forehead with the phone, and she pointed at the clock. He shrugged apologetically.

 

“Again, thank you so much for calling, Mr. Bane. I have to get to class. Geography. Um, Brazil, I guess. It seems like it would be a fun place to visit.”

 

The administrator was impressed. “They shouldn’t really call during school hours, but he seemed very concerned about your academic progress.”

 

John blurted out something and fled.

 

That evening he snuck out of his bed, taking an extra t-shirt with him. The fuse box was located in a closet on the top floor. It stank of bleach and mothballs, but offered blissful privacy. He had rushed through all his chores with his mind fogged, wanting all the time to bring up Bane’s voice in his memory. Calling him at school like that was outrageous. No one had ever gone to such great lengths to get John in trouble before. It was awesome.

 

The trick to staying quiet in an old building was keeping your steps on the edges of the floorboards. The nights were still cold, so he had shoved sneakers on. He knew that his leaving the bedroom would free up at least one other occupant’s masturbation schedule. They all craved solitude and comfort, but John knew you usually had to sacrifice one for the other.

 

Hugging the wall, he turned the last corner before the storeroom and threw a glance over his shoulder. His night vision was sharp, and he couldn’t make out anything different in the hallway he’d just walked down.

 

A hand closed over his mouth as he was swung around into the darkness.

 

Fear shot through him, and he sunk his nails in to the meat of the hand on his mouth, thrusting his elbow back sharply. Instead of repelling the body behind him he was drawn in even closer. His feet repeatedly stomped into the toes of his carrier even as realization dawned.

 

Bane’s steelcapped boots had absorbed all of the impact anyway.

 

The grip around his middle let go as John regained his stance, reaching up to stroke his hair as he took his bitten hand from John’s mouth. As if John would be stupid enough to cry out.

 

To demonstrate, he twisted his lips shut when Bane ran his finger over them.

 

Peering at him in the dark, Bane slipped the hood from his head and moved to John’s ear. “Found you.”

 

“Noted.”

 

He was pissed off. And scared. And thrilled.

 

“I make sure I do my research well.”

 

A split second later he had grabbed John back and was pushing him in the direction of the rooftop door. John gawped for a second. That door always had three locks on it, and whined noisily when it opened. But as Bane twisted the handle he could make out no more sound than the soft clicks of the catches giving way for them to pass through it.

 

Outside on the rooftop basketball court Bane made for the bleachers. The sky was cloudy, and three-quarters of a moon hung in an aura above them. John was placed against a brick wall, framed by the scaffolding. Pulling off his coat, Bane wrapped John in its heavy warmth. The smell of the fabric enclosed him as he rolled his shoulders to adjust to the weight. It felt like there was something kept in each of the many pockets, and he wondered how many of them were weapons.   

 

Reaching for Bane's hands, which were carefully tugging the lapels closer around him, he grazed his fingertips over calloused knuckles. Skimming his hands up Bane's forearms he dared to go as far as the cast iron curves of his biceps. 

 

Bane curled his shoulders to lean in, close enough for John to feel hot breath on his face, inviting his fingers to dance up and over the muscles he could feel through the black henley.

 

John said, "You must hit really hard."

 

Bane's head tilted to the side. It was almost a smile.

 

"Better to hit than to be hit."

 

His hands danced across Bane's chest. "I'm just really good at ducking."

 

Bane moved even closer, boxing him in.  "Evasion is an important skill.”

 

John smiled up at him. “It’s one I’ll need if they snap us together up here.”

 

“I had to bring you something.”

 

Reaching in to the coat’s lining, rubbing John’s midriff as he did, Bane fished something small out of one of the pockets and handed it to him. It was a chess piece, a black knight. John knocked it against Bane's chest.

 

“You want to play chess with me?”

 

Bane bent forward to run his cheek over the slope of John’s nose and drew back to look him in the eye.

 

“I want to get you undressed and see how often I can make you come.” 

 

He kissed him then. It was hard and sharp like the first time. Stopping short of drawing blood, he bit at his chin. Keeping his head from falling back to the bricks, John tried hard not to shake. This was a kind of control he was not familiar with.

 

“More.”

 

It was a plea. It sounded weak to his ears. But Bane didn’t crow over him, instead moving up from John’s neck to his mouth again.

 

His hands clawed under fabric until he got to the bare skin of a huge torso. The knight was still clutched in his right palm, so he rubbed at the warm skin with his knuckles.

 

The only thing his mind could come up with was _why me_? Bane had sucked his tongue into his mouth, and it felt like John was tapping in to a massive bank of strength. Their kiss turned wet, all the heat they could push together making them an oasis in the cold night. John swallowed too hard, choking on a lack of air and turning his head in shame to recover. Bane petted his back where he had a hand stuck under the enormous coat.

 

"'m sorry,"

 

He felt small and clumsy.

 

"Shush." Bane traced wet lips over his ear.

 

John's head ached emptily like he'd been chased. This was how he imagined sea sickness would be.

 

His senses rearranged themselves speedily when Bane reached down to press against his erection. The sound he made sounded very loud in the stillness of the night air. He tried to focus on the shape of the words Bane was saying over the burning need in his balls.

 

"Not here, not tonight. Take this back, work it off in that closet, and go to bed. I will leave a message for you at the Lounge, is that adequate?"

 

A hand job would be adequate, he wanted to say, but then he'd never willingly let someone touch his dick before. And he wanted to do what Bane said, as the rest of his message became clear in his muddled head. Together. Later. _Soon_.

 

What he came up with was, "For my chess lesson?"

 

Bane's thick lips touched his brow. He didn't laugh.

 

"For many lessons, John Blake."

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

John bounded into the hotel room. The door had been left ajar, so he guessed someone else might be in there meeting with Bane. But he was feeling too good for it cut down his enthusiasm. He’d been walking on air since the rooftop trip three nights earlier. Even if yesterday he’d been corned at the Data Lounge by a crusty hippy called Clyde. He'd just gone in to pick up Bane’s instructions for a meeting and it had taken quarter of an hour to extract himself from a lecture on the need for a new agrarian economy. It didn’t matter much as he walked back to the home, his mind spinning around the single fact that he had somewhere that Bane wanted him to be at in a day’s time.

 

Bane was alone inside, settled at the table with a stack of books. Behind him the computers buzzed. It sounded like they were churning through a lot of information, and the noise reminded him of the laundry room at St. Swithin’s. He was meant to be there now, but he'd simply told Andy to sort it out himself.

 

Since the party, Andy and his friends had avoided John. John found that he liked it that way.

 

Now he looked at Bane, bundled up in two hoodies, camo pants and those heavy boots John had kicked.

 

Bane didn’t raise his head. "The lock has the key in it, close it and bring it to me."

 

John followed his command, securing a slate-colored padlock which had the heft of a cannonball.

 

Bane pulled out a crate from under the table next to him. John figured from this that he couldn't just go and sit in his lap and start making out. In the frosty air of the derelict room, making out now seemed far more improbable than it had when John was climbing up the elevator shaft.

 

Perching on the crate, he kept his bag on his lap and fished inside for the chess piece. There wasn't a board on the table so he placed next to the books. Bane was holding one open, looking from it to John carefully. Opening his mouth then closing it, he suddenly understood. He was meant to work something out.

 

Looking over the text, he frowned. One side of the yellowing pages was unreadable, in another language he couldn’t identify. The facing page was recognizable, just, as Latin. Then he looked at the shape of the paragraphs, and he saw the name 'Ajax'.

 

"It's the Iliad. Is that the Greek?"

 

Bane nodded approvingly. "This is the Italicus translation."

 

Laughing, John said, "When you said a better version, I hadn't thought of Latin. I'm going to disappoint you, I don't know dick-all Latin."

 

"Do they not make you attend Mass at that place?"

 

"Sure they do, but I never went to church a day before I got to St Swithin’s. The boys who grew up in it, they know Mass."

 

Bane growled softly at that, which John took to mean that he was an uncultured philistine. He asked him, "Just how many languages do you speak?"

 

"I can not speak this," he replied, pointing at the ancient Greek in front of him. "I have rarely heard it out loud. But the Brothers taught me Latin. I grew up with Spanish and English, those were my first tongues."

 

"You - " The reference to brothers had confused John, thinking of how Bane referred to members of The Fire. Then he understood. "- were taught by Monks? You're a Catholic?"

 

He snorted. "I am no such thing. I believe in this world only. No institution can provide moral rule, man must make that for himself."

 

Shuffling his books in to a neater pile, he picked up a smaller paperback and handed it to John. "For your report. A better translation. In English."

 

"Thank you. You keep doing nice things for me. I have found some more fiber points, I can tell you where."

 

"I was thinking that I would light a fire, and then take you to bed."

 

Throwing his head back, John rocked with laughter.

 

"Well, if you think it's more important than the cable maps."

 

"I do."

 

Bane did not laugh back, but rose from his seat. Running a hand through John's hair he moved from him over to a brazier that hadn’t been there last time. Loading it with lumps of wood he asked John, “How long until your absence becomes a problem?”

 

“An hour or so. It’s ten minutes back if I run.”

 

"Then I must leave you fit to run."

 

It was as if all the muscles in his stomach clenched at once. This – something – whatever it was, was going to happen. Bane did not look like a blushing virgin. He had always left John unharmed, except for the bite, and he’d kinda liked that, but Bane had brought him here for a purpose. And John needed his guts now.

 

While the rest of his body was dealing with fight or flight, his dick was very happy watching Bane stoke the fire and begin to pull off his clothing. He did both things with diligence and absorption, stripping down to his bare chest.

 

John didn't want to look meek. He stood, dropping his bag to the floor and stepping over it. Sitting down on the edge of the mattress, he started working his sneakers off. One knot wouldn't untie, and he felt flummoxed.

 

Bane took his head in his hands, turned it up. John was looking at this man with a body carved from granite, a head and a half taller than him. On his sneaker, his hands were trembling slightly.

 

"Do not rush, John Blake."

 

"You said,"

 

Bane shook his head briefly.

 

"One hour is not a deadline. Time is ours, and our lessons -"

 

John felt himself blush at that word. Like a girl. He wanted to slap himself, but Bane rubbed his warm cheeks and spoke evenly.

 

"There is no need to hurry them."

 

Bending to one knee, he ran his hands down from John’s face to his legs, stroking over his thighs and calves. Looking thoughtful, he pulled off his sneakers and socks and then made for the waistband of his school uniform pants. Taking the hint, John leaned back into the mattress. Lifting his hips and having them skimmed off him felt like being lowered in to a warm bath His skin prickled with heat and his eyes slipped shut.

 

Bane began to size him up. Squeezing muscles, pinching his flanks, paying attention to everything except the parts of John covered by his graying boxers. John opened his eyes as one of his legs was lifted.

 

“That tickles.”

 

“No fractures? No joint problems?”

 

Shaking his head, he said “Nope. Had a wisdom tooth pulled out, though.”

 

Bane murmured, closer now than he’d ever been, lying parallel to him and running blunt fingers through the new, coarse hair over his skinny thighs. John’s mouth fell open and he started blathering.

 

“Our track team was stopped, lack of funding. I used to run sprints and medium distance. Sometimes I still do. Like when a scary huge gang leader follows me to the orphanage.”

 

“Your running leaves much to be desired, in that case. Kick. The air, up.”

 

John obliged. Bane made him do it again. “I will train you. You have the tools but not the technique for fighting.”

 

Daring to stretch a hand out over the immense shoulder planted by his torso, John softly stroked back. “I’m never going to be like this.”

 

“No. But I see other potential in you.”

 

You couldn’t say Bane didn’t have a sense of humor, because that was when he rolled a palm over John’s dick, making him squirm. Bending to kiss his chest, he murmured in John’s ear, “Pleasure is a revolutionary device.”

 

“Hey?”

 

Tucking himself closer and keeping up the steady movement with his hand, Bane lifted his eyes to John. “When I was younger, I stayed for a while with a Marxist collective down by the docks. They had many stupid ideas about non-violent resistance, but one of them, a woman named Star, taught me that. Our shame is manufactured by the systems of oppression.”

 

John’s head clattered with the collision of theory and practice and fingers and pressure.

 

“The thing you must learn, John, is to take what you want.”

 

This was followed by the sound of his underwear seams ripping in Bane’s hands, John’s gasps, and the crackling of the fire eating through copies of the Gotham Gazette. John felt unanchored. He was used to dealing with his hard-ons as quickly as possible in solitude, not having someone else’s body banked up against him, the pale skin of wide arms luminous in the firelight as he moves over John’s entire body. The nervous system made sense to him now, the warning alerts that he was accustomed to signaling pain or frustration now firing out something different in his head. Bane stroked him, from the tip down, and then kept going up his torso as if John was going to unlock with enough focus and motion.

 

Maybe, he thought, he would. There was something more than an orgasm building in his head, something like a bomb ticking away and getting more and more urgent. His own hands tumbled greedily over the velvety shaved head and then down to the vicious scars that marked out Bane’s upper back. His mind was making up questions about them, but they were soon discarded as Bane’s mouth worked over his belly. Wet and purposeful, it made him inhale so hard his rib cage was outlined under skin tight as a drum. The friction on his cock from long confident strokes spread all over his skin, which was sweating furiously. John dug his nails in to muscular shoulders as those thick lips sucked over his hipbone, then Bane was licking down and moving – and it was all happening faster than John could keep track of.

 

Dark eyes watched him. “Perhaps I should make you wait. Make you work for the first one,”

 

“Yes! Yes, anything, I can – suck you, you can put it, anywhere you want. C’mon Bane – ”

 

His hands get pushed down next to his own head. “Hush. You don’t know what you’re offering, do you?”

 

John crumpled, twisting his face away. He muttered in to the blanket, “I can learn.”

 

“Not until I show you what it is to give freely.”

 

Drawing John even closer to him, he began to jerk him off with rougher moves. It was a different angle than he’d ever experienced before, and his hips rocked upward like they were mounted on a broken suspension.

 

His orgasm seemed to be pulled from the base of his spine, and it hit him stronger than anything he’d ever felt before. Bane’s presence dragged him back in to the moment, despite the sense memories that try to creep around in his head. John had come in front of people before. It was never anything like good, at best awkward, at worst…worse. Usually his orgasm would chime in with some small reminder of the bad times. But there was no place for shame under Bane’s shadow.

 

John had to force his eyes open. The dim light washed out everything else in the room except their linked bodies. For a moment, they floated.

 

“Thank you.”

 

Bane stroked his brow. “The gift was for me.”

 

He kept his hands busy, soothing and mapping out the regions of John’s shape. Lying back, wrung out, John let it go on for long minutes, monitoring his own heart rate as if it’s something happening somewhere just outside of him. The adrenaline rush kept ebbing then picking back up as he processed what was happening. His leg twitched as it was scooped up and hooked over Bane’s hip. John mindlessly fingered the waistband of Bane’s rough cargo pants. They felt scratchy on his super-sensitive skin, in a good way, and he rubbed his inner thigh up and down over them in lazy loops.

 

A question came to mind, and he said it out loud without even thinking. “Are there rules?”

  
Bane looked up from where he was cataloguing John’s ribcage. “For you? Not here. Not yet.”

  
“Yet?”

 

He pinched the softened flesh of John’s stomach. “You will crave rules, eventually, as you grow to understand your own pleasure. But I will not make them up for you.”

 

John flipped this information around in his head. He tried to shake out some meaning, but Bane’s attention had moved to his belly. It had never seemed like a sensitive part before, he never much liked himself there. Too skinny, unlike Bane’s own thick abs. But now it was being sucked at, petted, pulled, and John’s torso was alive with sensation.

 

When Bane concentrated, his focus was total. John was spitting out some of the worst swearwords he knew but nothing made Bane hesitate as his diligent mouth tracked a path between each hip bone.

 

Then his dick was in Bane’s mouth and down his throat. The pressure was unreal, unlike anything John’s imagination had ever predicted. He cried out and came suddenly.

 

This time it was like lightening had struck him. He had vaguely planned to let Bane know, tap him on the shoulder or something – that was just basic manners.

 

Bane lurched up, his fingers over his mouth, which was pulled down in distaste. 

 

“Oh _god_ , I’m sorry. I didn’t, didn’t mean to. Sorry. Not like that.”

 

Bane waved a hand to hush him. Reaching over for a towel lying next to the bedding, he curled up and spat. Rubbing his mouth clean, when he turned back his face was composed as a Buddha’s.

 

“I do not enjoy the taste. But do not be sorry. Am I correct that it was your first time?”

 

John shrugged. He felt hollow, like after a long run. “With someone I like.”

 

“You didn’t like the others?”

 

“Other times, if they made me do stuff, I’ve always gone as far away as I could make my mind go. It took me ages to come.” John’s head felt heavy. He kept talking over the pushy memories. “But I know that it’s meant to, in blow jobs,”

 

Bane shook his head in response, settling up closer to him.

 

“No, that is not always the case. The jaw can hurt.”

 

Bane ran his finger over John’s own jaw line, continuing his instruction. “And it can be uncomfortable. It becomes more about the show of power than the communion of pleasure.”

 

They both lay back, watching the fire make patterns on the ceiling. Then John rolled to his side, taking in Bane’s form. The slow even breaths he took, the large hand carefully pinning John’s leg over his waist. The tell-tale bulge between his legs.

 

“You still have your pants on.”

 

“Observant.”

 

John smacked his stomach for that, and then walked two fingers up his chest. “Don’t you want to?”

 

Letting go of his leg, Bane took hold of his hand in a rough grip, and licked his fingers. “Yes. But I have different goals, John. I want to earn it. My needs are not tied in by shame, but discipline.”

 

“You don’t need to?”

 

“Don’t look worried.” He lowered John’s hand down, and let him press for a moment against his zipper.

 

John exhaled speedily, pushing even closer around him. “So there are rules, but only for you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Nuzzling at his neck, John put more of his weight on his chest. “Am I allowed to know why?”

 

“My brothers in The Fire, they sometimes encourage me to take a lover. It has not been a priority, I do not feel shame over my desires but I wish to have control over them. Do these schools teach you about Gandhi?”

 

“I know who Gandhi is, Bane.”

 

Bane ignored his tone of voice and kept on. “I would think the US system would reject him as a subject. Most of his theories are uninteresting to me, but he tested himself physically and mentally.”

 

John dared to rest his head down over a shoulder. “Didn’t he bring girls to his bed?”

 

Bane rumbled in the affirmative. “It intrigued me. I did not realize that I would find someone appropriately inflammatory without looking for them.”

 

“Me?”

 

“An ideal subject.”

 

He went back to running his fingers through John’s hair. Unable to come up with a reply, John closed his eyes and kissed down the broad chest. Fastening his mouth over one broad nipple, he licked over it and sucked. Not thinking, just letting it happen, he murmured softly as the contact takes hold. Then it hit him what he was doing and he reeled back.

 

“Why not?”

 

That was not what he expected Bane to say. But shame still covered him like a cloak. That was so babyish, wasn’t it? Too needy. He’d be sent away.

 

Bane read the distress on his face. “It feels good. Here,”

 

Pushing him gently to lean back, he steadied a hand on John’s stomach. Then his mouth – those lips – were on him, his chest, his nipple, suckling at him. It was warm, prickly, uncommonly pleasurable. A different kind of comfort from what they had already done.

 

Their legs were all tangled. John let his euphoria build up and up. It felt like a bubble inside him, taking up all of the space that was usually red with anger. A new map of possibilities was being drawn up in his mind’s eye. Out of everything life had to offer, nothing he could think of came close to what they’d just made happen on the floor of an abandoned building in less than an hour.

 

The tightening in his chest seized up until he had to cover his eyes. Bane nudged his hands from his face.

 

“No. Not like that. Breathe.”

 

Stroking the tears from his cheeks, he waited for John’s ragged breathing to even out.

 

“See, you are strong, already.”

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

He started sitting at the back of his classes. A few teachers noticed, and it disrupted the terrarium of tenth grade, but it wasn’t like John cared what any of those idiots thought of him now.  Moving apart freed up his time to read and re-read all the stuff he was being handed at the Data Lounge. A few head-nods when he walked in had snowballed to acceptance, borderline friendship even, with the core group who ran the place. They knew he was close to The Fire but not quite one of them. Not yet. He particularly hit it off with the young women who showed up and, as far as John could tell, basically ran the joint. The respectable resources that the Lounge provided grew with their help, including the library, free meals, and guides to finding shelters throughout Gotham. The Fire subsidized it all with the activities that took place far away from the old store front they operated from, and Bane kept an eye on what was going on with an unnerving degree of accuracy. But it was people like Malin and Joanna and Asha who got this stuff done.

 

They wanted to feed him all the time, passing him vegan oatmeal cookies as he sunk in to one of the broken-ass couches with an issue of Ray Gun and the library copy of The Society of the Spectacle. Asha told him about Riot Grrrl and Rosa Luxemburg as he helped dice vegetables for the huge vats of soup she cooked in her tiny downtown kitchen, while Jo promised to show him how to fix up bikes and shared her hip flask of rotgut whiskey with him. Malin was the one who was closest to Bane, and in turn he felt closest to her. She was older but never tried to lecture him or joke about what he was doing at the Lounge. She had to know, or suspect something, as John would get his hotel meeting times from her.

 

At the hotel he didn't have to climb up the elevator shaft again, since he'd got his own key and the pass code to the stairway door. He even got the knack of the bucket system in the bathroom.

 

When he was there, he could rest his head and suck on Bane's chest for as long he needed to, or cry. If his rage was overtaking him they would wrestle on the floor. Bane could pin him in nine seconds, but let John test his own limits. If John thrashed too much and Bane thought he would hurt himself, a stable hand would slide under his head and still him with a slow squeeze.

 

When their tussling led to John hot and panting, too turned on for reason but freed from his fury, Bane would drag him over to the mattresses and undress him. Then with his hands or mouth he would bring him off. The first time was always too quick for John. His pleasure felt small and selfish, but by the second – or one afternoon, third – time Bane had him coming he would be able to fly all over again.

 

He began to learn about Bane. It started with his muscles, the most tangible part of him. The corded arms and shoulders that had no sag or yield, the feeling of concentration made flesh through sheer will. Bane was always warm, and John loved spreading his palms over his stomach to heat them up. It was hard to believe that this body could have ever begun as a child. Bane had committed to getting rid of any weaknesses. His standards were sky high, but his followers never seemed to shy from his demands. John still wasn’t witness to much of the interaction between Bane and the rest of The Fire. He grew quickly to understand that you didn't assemble a large group of lawbreakers together for regular debriefings on illicit activities and motivational chats. Bane's growing kingdom was one run on whispers and pagers, fresh cell phones being circulated regularly, and collaborations with the underground networks of Gotham.

 

It wasn't just the fiber optic cables that ran invisibly through the streets, it was groups of people. They tended to be young, poor, dissatisfied, and fond of loud music and drugs, but not all the same loud music and drugs. Malin helped him out, drawing looping circles on the back of a napkin and filling them in with various scene names and their arcane feuds and blood ties. She was 25, a pale Midwestern blonde, she was a head taller than John, quiet but always verging on biting sarcasm.

 

“Bane changed the gender dynamics almost overnight. You have no idea how Neanderthal some of these so-called revolutionaries can be.”

 

She smiled, and took a gulp from her cup of sage tea.

 

"Now, if someone gets assaulted at a show, or her boyfriend throws her out, Bane stands up for her. He gives women space to speak. That never happened, not really, for all this talk of equal rights. We're doing this self-defense course because of him, because he doesn't want us left behind. Were you here when Zoe's asshole ex was trying to turn everyone against her? Last year."

 

Blake shook his head no.

 

"He posted awful stuff to the mailing list, all kinds of bullshit. Got her room mates to let him in to her place and then tore it up, put the blame on her. Total asshole, but the kind of instigator that is real popular in young, macho groups. Zoe got called to meet Bane, and he let her talk. Rick - that was his name, the P is silent - went psycho when he found out, threatened to have his boys pull out from some deal they were working with The Fire."

 

The pleasure she took in telling him this came through in her flushed cheeks. "At the last minute, when they had got some bands in to play at a block party, they were going to walk away with the PA system. The dude even threatened to host another party the same night. Stupid."

 

John had heard enough. "Did he live?"

 

Malin laughed. "Yeah, but he got his ass kicked, and worse - his rep ruined."

 

John nodded, but she kept on. “Zoe was nobody, you see. Just some young college girl with her hair in Heidi braids who came to a couple of shows some weeks. But Rick was a player, a facilitator. That kind of power imbalance, it usually holds, even among the so-called enemies of the system.”

 

She told John that she’d never witnessed such consistent concern for women in activist circles before. “What Bane does, like, I know he’s not – not a peacemaker. But fuck the peacemakers, they all want us to be passive Earth Mothers. He walks his talk, and that is rare, John-boy. So the females come here, and we have his back because The Fire has ours.”

 

The Lounge’s self-defense classes were really popular. Zoe was co-teaching the next one.

 

-

 

What John hadn’t expected was to be still jerking off so much. Bane wound him up so tight, and continued to deny John the privilege of witnessing his own release. He did try to be more like Bane, more disciplined, more self-sufficient, but while he could get up at 5AM to do press-ups and cut himself off from the kids at the home who always wanted to talk, he couldn’t not want Bane. Even reading or debating set him off, rock hard and distracted when he was trying to get his head around a world without prisons or the inevitable collapse of the stock market through entropy. 

 

He knew that Bane read ferociously, early in the morning and in the afternoon. For a man with no real job, who led a group of minor outlaws, he was astonishingly regimented. John liked thinking through his schedule during the day: he would wake early, before the sun rose, and work out for ninety minutes. No matter what day-to-day thuggery was required, he would appear at the Lounge around midday to hold court with any the kids who had convinced Asha, the ‘Lounge Mama’, that they were worthy of meeting him. If he felt they needed it, he’d dole out money, a free cell phone, a bag of groceries, legal advice, or the promise of a visit to an intolerant landlord or exploitative boss.

 

Between reading and exercising with one of the jerry-built weights system he’d set  up in one of the three derelict warehouses The Fire had taken over, his evenings were spent in the dark corners of Gotham, or with his ‘brothers’. In the small hours of the morning he was online, or moving around the city under dark.

 

There must’ve been some institution in Bane’s history, John decided one day in geography class, because he felt that he recognized the shape of one in him. Perhaps it was in the way you learned to hold your interior self in check under surveillance. He’d recently been started on Foucault and the Panopticon by Malin, and it fitted his thesis well. Almost everything he learned, he tried to relate to Bane or work out how he could use it to impress him.  

 

Bane had trained himself not to sleep much, preferring to meditate twice a day. He even had the Data Lounge run meditation courses.

 

“It stills the mind. Aids control.”

 

John was lying next to him at the hotel. His Spanish homework sat on top of them, John ignoring it in favor of getting his hand up three layers of clothing.

 

“Is that how you – I mean, I know I’m sixteen, but all I want to do is,” and he skimmed the edge of Bane’s waistband, boldly dipping his fingers down beneath his zipper. Bane growled, the closest he got to a laugh, and stroked over John’s hand with his own. Then he carefully moved the school folder aside and dragged John over to lie on him. Tucking his head under Bane’s chin, he continued.

 

“All day I think about talking to you, and we have all these great conversations in my head. Then I see you and touch you and I can’t think of anything. You make me stupid.”

 

“I have learned patience, John. But,” his voice deepened to a rumble, “I find you push my limits.”

 

John took this as permission to start removing clothing. “Me?”

 

 “Before you come over, I work myself off. That helps.”

 

He said it unselfconsciously, with accompanying hand motion. John laughed, and Bane looked affronted. John kissed him to make up for it.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m not used to people liking me _._ This much _.”_

 

“I do. I kept this, to do it with.”

 

Bane reached over John to fish something out from under the mattress. It was a pillow slip with something folded neatly inside.

 

“My shirt?”

 

It was the tee from the night he visited the home. The worn one, that John was going to use for clean-up.

 

“It had your smell.”

 

“Really?” John rested his chin on Bane’s stomach. “Next time, can I watch?”

 

“You – ” Bane rolled him to his side, pushing his clothes away with an impatient hand. “You test me.”

 

 

-

Now when John visited, there was no hope of keeping him focused on Homer or fiber optic cable. He wanted their mouths to meet and to keep his body climbing up to the peaks he had ascended to before. There was more, so much more, and John knew that they could get there in minutes.

 

Today had been extra frustrating. Hurrying to the hotel, he had been worried that Bane would give up on him as he was thirty minutes later than usual. The fact that they had a usual time to meet had been a source of secret warm pleasure. But he had always managed to be on time before.

 

His school bag banged on his hip as he scrambled up the steps, and he felt the familiar fury rising in his chest. It wasn’t fair, he’d been stopped by a teacher wanting him to tutor some of the boys in Spanish. John had wanted to snap at Mrs. Cruz that it wasn’t his fault that she didn’t have enough time to teach them well, or that she worked in such an unfair system.

 

Previously he had liked his Spanish teacher, but now he was just annoyed by her weaknesses. How she could be satisfied to work here, under the thumb of a matrix of oppression. ‘Matrix of oppression’ was something he’d been talking about two days earlier with Malin at the Lounge, meaning he’d broken curfew at the home. Which meant extra laundry work, and John didn’t have the time for any of it. He felt his whole life pressing up against him and urging him on, to this room.

 

Where Bane was sitting at the trestle table counting piles of money. It was an arresting sight that cut all the apologies off in his throat. “I’m – ”

 

Bane rumbled a greeting in his direction. “Come. This is tonight’s later business. Help me pack it away.”

 

Happy to have a task, John grabbed the briefcase Bane pointed to from the floor and brought it over. There was no extra seat so he sat down on one of Bane’s thighs, leading to an anchoring arm looping around his waist. John tried to count the rolls of money in his head as it was stored away. It was mainly tens and fives, he thought around four thousand. Bane’s fingers worked quickly with them, and he closed the case before John had a chance to reassess his estimate. With the money out of sight John’s shyness ebbed, and he twisted closer to nuzzle at Bane’s neck. “Hurry up and corrupt me. I’m cold.”

 

The arm around him tightened, but Bane kept his attention on the dull gold locks of the case. John continued sucking until he felt the grooves of his teeth leave marks. He licked at the reddened skin, feeling a primal pang of satisfaction. Bane looked at him quizzically.

 

“I have decided that you have an oral fixation.”

 

“Nnh?”

 

“You are always kissing, now biting. Trying to find something to put in your mouth. Are you hungry? Should I get you food?”

 

“No.” John pushed at the flesh under his hands just to feel how strong it was. He knew Bane was joking, which was rare enough that he always tried to play along with it. “I have government cheese and Wonder Bread.”

 

Bane snorted. “That does not sound very nutritious.”

 

“Says the guy who eats out of dumpsters.”

 

John wrapped himself closer to Bane, who carried an impatient lapful of schoolboy to the floor as John grasped at his chest with his cold fingers.

 

“I wanted to work on your Spanish,”

 

“ _Si, senor_. What’s ‘let me see your cock’ _en_ _español_?”

 

The room was chilled and John crammed his hands into the warmth of Bane’s armpits. Bane made to head butt him, but instead folded his body close and lowersed them both down.

 

“Your written work is admirable but your verbal leaves much to be desired.”

 

He sounded detached, not disapproving, and John continued to tease.

 

“You want to work on my oral?”

 

Bane sighed. “This is not an ideal training ground. I have myself to blame for that.”

 

They kissed long and wet, until Bane held John’s stuttering hips to slow them.

 

“Let me start the fire first.”

 

Propping himself on an elbow to watch, John studied the dedication that Bane brought to the task even when he was visibly hard.

 

“How many languages do you speak? You didn’t finish telling me, and I think it’s more than English, Spanish, and Latin – not that that’s not a lot – because I heard at the Lounge that you spoke with someone there in Urdu.”

 

Bane’s head moved, but he didn’t turn it enough to look over at John.

 

“You listen to gossip.”

 

“Involving you, of course I do. I don’t expect everything I hear to be true, most of the people there wouldn’t know Urdu from Klingon.”

 

Bane took his time to arrange thin wooden slats in a grid. “I do not know that one.”

 

John burst out laughing. “You wouldn’t unless you’re a Trekkie! You never heard of Klingons? Star Trek?”

 

His brow pinched as he bent over the brazier. “Is it a movie?”

 

“And a TV show. There’s a whole cult around it. One of the kids at the home is into Star Trek. He catches some grief, but I think he’s just found a refuge - in other worlds.”

 

Bane nodded slowly. “That was what I found in the books we had. Where I grew up, there were not many, the only libraries I knew were in the chapel and jail.”

 

“The jail? What the hell where you there for?”

 

The fuel clicked and crackled as the flames crept up. Bane stood up. John watched the line of his shoulders firming and wished he un-speak his words. He started to burble, “I’m sorry. I know better, usually. You don’t have to tell me anything. It’s enough that you let me come here again.”

 

“I wanted you here. You should know I do not ask for what I do not want.”

 

He looked down at John, as big as the Colossus of Rhodes, bigger than Gotham, bigger than the Church he was forced in to every Sunday and the school that took his weekdays. There didn’t seem to be anything John could offer but trust. He replied softly, his wind knocked out of him.

 

“I know.”

 

Sitting down, Bane unlaced his boots. John watched, looking at the hints of immense power and control in the short movements.

 

“I grew up in Santa Prisca, in the years after the coup. You know our history?”

 

John took his time replying, wanting to get this clear. “There was a boy in the home, Paul, from there. Father Reilly asked him to tell us about his homeland. It took him a long time to talk, but I looked some stuff up so I could at least ask good questions if he wanted to. He had seen his mother be killed.”

 

Bane rested his boots away from the hungry fire. “It was a short war on paper, but long for the people to live through. How old was Paul?”

 

“Two years older than me.”

 

Bane looked back at him. “Were you friends?”

 

“Not really. We did some school stuff together. A social studies project, on the Peña Duro Island ruling by the Supreme Court.”

 

Back straightened, Bane looked ahead. Years of hanging out with unwanted children meant that John recognized the affected blankness of someone with a lot to hide. Then he sank down, stretching a hand back to rub at John’s arm.

 

“So you know about the Pit.”

 

That was the nickname for the Peña Duro Island penal colony given by the prisoners. When the human rights protestors and reporters found it out they started publicizing the slang term. That year, John’s last foster placement had gone very badly, and he had arrived at St Swithin’s with a second degree burn on his arm from the candle wax that had been poured over him when he refused to bow his head during grace. When you spent time in the sick bay you were the first to get that day’s newspaper to read. He was twelve and trying to make sense of the world, so he read every issue cover to cover. Peña Duro, aka the Pit, was the biggest story that year, a makeshift prison on a stony outcrop created by Gotham authorities to deal with Santa Prisca refugees who had been smuggled in a cargo boat. It was attached to a refugee facility, but didn’t follow international law, or any law, argued the Santa Priscan Liberty League.

 

Even when he was completely healed, John was so wrapped up in the coverage that Father Reilly gave him the job of picking up the papers in the morning. It was around this time that he began dreaming of becoming a lawyer, reading how the prison governor claimed that this group of refugees had all been violent criminals who the Santa Prisca dictatorship had forcibly deported instead of executing, and the counter-claims that without fair trials, no one could be fairly imprisoned. But who would hold these trials, and who should pay? And what would happen if the refugees ever landed at Gotham? He lay awake at nights running it through his head, always coming to a courtroom conclusion where John would be the one to deliver the impassioned speech and win the day.

 

In reality, after the Supreme Court’s ruling came through, Paul and John were assigned a presentation on the topic. John wrote most of it. Paul once listened to him rattling off some of the legal precedents and shook his head.

 

“I don’t care about those sons of _putas_ and their human rights. Everyone knows that they were put on that boat to bring havoc to America. They’re killers and rapists.”

 

After the ruling, most of the prisoners were returned to Santa Prisca. There was meant to be a public inquiry but it never happened, which launched a froth of conspiracy theories. The prisoners who were allowed to stay were never publically named.

 

Sitting up while keeping Bane’s hand anchored to him by covering it with his own, John asked “Did you come to Gotham after it was closed?”

 

Resting his other hand on John’s wrist, Bane seemed to talk without breathing. “No. I was in the Pit.”

 

John couldn’t humor such a pathetic joke. This one wasn’t worth encouraging. The concerned twelve-year-old who had written about Peña Duro for three different school essays wouldn’t let him. He was still angry.

 

“That’s not possible, Bane.”

 

The hand on his wrist uncurled, palm facing upward to the sky. “No?”

 

“You’re not older than - how old are you? The Pit was started with refugees who’d been moved from the main facility five years before they closed it down.”

 

Bane’s hand seemed to get heavier, as if he was deliberately pressing down on John. His blankness had returned. “I am nineteen years old.”

 

“So you couldn’t be.”

  
“How old were the prisoners there, Mr. Blake?”

 

“They were – they were _adults_ , Bane. Grown men. Rebels expelled by the government, probably.”

 

“Most of them had worked against the General, certainly. Or were sent there out or revenge or fear. A monk came with them, as well, not by his own choice but as a sort of joke by the policemen who came to his school for one of his students, the son of a mercenary who had killed many during the revolution. They took several children, but most of them died during the crossing.”

 

Bane’s hand stayed pressed to John’s.

 

“I did not.”

 

There was a gap forming in John’s chest. It was a place different from the source of the anger or the sorrow. Where Bane’s story was entering him and accepting what he was saying.

 

Lifting his hand to brush his hand over John’s brow, Bane looked up at him. He was being patient. John was the one who wanted everything right now, yesterday. Bane could wait for anything.

 

He must have learned that in prison.

 

They didn’t talk about much else that night. John could only stay another twenty minutes, and Bane had to get his case of money to some shady corner of Gotham. Walking back to St. Swithin’s, tired to his bones, John thought that it took a revelation of giant proportions to make the mystery stack of cash look unimportant. He caught himself wondering if it had been a deliberate evasion, but dismissed the traitorous idea. Bane always answered his questions honestly, even if the answer was “It’s not in your interests to know.”   

 

Focusing on Bane helped distract him from what would await him at the orphanage. Care home, his ass. The night warden, Mr. Timms, was only going to bitch him out for being late, and Andy might try to bring up the laundry work. As if John hadn’t covered for him half a dozen times.

 

He felt resigned when he saw the figures waiting by St. Swithin’s main entrance. Andy had invited Ty and DeWitt to this, as well as Olli, a younger kid that Ty had brought in to their circle. More than they’d ever brought John in, and he’d been doing the laundry shift with Andy for three years now.

 

Standing in a dark pocket of an alleyway, John looked at them. A couple of months ago it had been so important that he impress Andy, now they looked years younger, nervous and small. The bruises and bite marks Bane had left on his body rang out through his nerves like a cry of solidarity. Bane provided him with evidence that he was growing strong. That he was wanted for something.

 

Dodging the cars, he ran across the street. Father Reilly would've scolded him for bad role modeling for the little ones, but he wasn't going to be lecturing John tonight. There was a fundraiser on at some rich person's house. At this hour, Timms would be too worried about getting twenty boys under twelve showered and in to bed. That's why this little welcome committee could feel free to hang out on the stoop and wait for him.

 

John’s plan had been to settle up quickly with Timms and then re-read everything in their small library about Peña Duro. Instead, he had this bullshit to deal with.

 

Fine. Let them waste their own time. John clenched his jaw and made for the doorway behind Ty and Olli.

 

"Blake! Hey, stop a sec."

 

Andy stood up from the step and reached out for John's arm. He pulled away, keeping his eyes on the door.

 

"We just wanna talk."

 

"John, man, it's been a while."

 

That was DeWitt.

 

"We never see you no more."

 

Heaving a sigh, John tried to push past their outstretched arms. Hoping that they'd get the hint and go back to talking about lingerie models or the Top 40 or whatever. They all started talking then, including Olli, and he didn't even know the kid. The four of them were crowding around him and getting in his face. Lowering his eyes, he turned to look at Andy.

 

"What. Is. It. You. Want?"

 

"Jesus, John..."

 

Father Reilly would put cayenne pepper on their tongues if he heard them blaspheme.

 

Ty took up the slack.

 

"We wanna talk to you."

 

Andy's voice came quieter, pitched just for their little circle. "We know you're hanging out at the Lounge a lot, and with The Fire."

 

"We want in."

 

That was Olli. The others shot him a sharp look. His face curled up in defiance. "It's not fair!"

 

"Nothing is fair."

 

John spat it out, feeling like he could hit someone. He wanted to make his words hurt, so he pushed back against Andy's hands on his chest and looked him in the eye.

 

"It's not my fault that you're scared. That you're not worth their time. You think your little gang here means something? Because you can impress some pre-teens with your big talk? You're nothing, and you chose that. Let me go."

 

Straining against their arms, his fists tightened. He couldn't fight them all if they really wanted to whale on him, but the moment grew brittle instead of igniting. Andy was the first to step back.

 

"You've changed, dude."

 

John didn't bother to acknowledge him. He snarled at Ty, who was still holding on to his shoulder. "Let me the hell go."

 

They parted like the Red Sea, and John slammed through the door. Inside was the sound of kids, more kids, and John wondered if he would get to the point where he could bring some of them in. If he could find any of them worthy of Bane and The Fire.

 

Then Timms appeared at the top of the stairs. "Blake, where have you been? Curfew was at 7,"

 

Switching to dutiful orphan mode, he smiled and waved at the harried-looking old man.

 

"Honors project, Mr. T. I have a letter from school. Had to interview someone about a history assignment,"

 

"No one ever - " But Timm's rumpled voice trailed off as John ran past him up the stairs. He was already thinking about Bane again, and the information he’d been entrusted with. About Santa Prisca. About the Pit.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

John was headed towards the school library when someone grabbed at his arm. Stopping and looking up with narrowed eyes, he saw Fernando, a guy he vaguely knew from gym class, slipping his hand back in his pocket and moving closer to him.

 

“There’s a guy at the back gate, want to see ya.”

 

John nodded shortly. “Fine. Thanks.”

 

Fernando swiped a look either way down the corridor. “Is this a hook-up? You dealing any, John?”

 

Shaking his head no, John walked away. There was no use in getting talked about at school any more than necessary. If someone was that desperate for illegal substances their neighborhood had a thriving trade in things to shove in your lungs, veins, or nostrils.

 

The back gate was a sturdy iron structure framed by brick walls, a holdover from when the school had been a work home back when Gotham was founded. John could make out Florian leaning against it. Florian tended to lean on any available surface. It was obvious why Bane would’ve sent him – the Haitian man with the thin dreads and half-smile had an air of discretion to him. At first John has seen him at the Lounge and taken him for another older man there for the college girls, but Bane considered him one of the sharpest minds in Gotham. Florian was an information broker.

 

“John! My man. It is nice to see a young person in this scholarly environment.”

 

“Hey Florian. Not that scholarly. Some of our textbooks are older than me.”

 

They exchanged handslaps through the gate. Florian’s cheerful voice lowered to a whisper.

 

“Bane asked me to pass something on, and I was in the neighborhood for a little administration work,”

 

“Yeah? What’s her name?”

 

Florian clucked his tongue. “So worldly, young John. A gentleman never tells.”

 

“Rosa, right? She runs the florist down on Southbrook. I’ve seen you out there before.”

 

“Perhaps I just like the tulips she gets in.”

 

John could feel the eyes on his back from kids around him in the yard. “Say hi for me, will you. I hope Bane’s message was worth the detour.”

 

“He is a man who is very generous with incentives, do not worry about that. Though I think you already know that, yes, young John? It was a change of address, is all: you are familiar with the Fire’s safe house on Brick Rd?”

 

“The factory, yes.”

 

Florian nodded. “That house, at 5.30 onwards, tomorrow. If you please.”

 

John wasn’t going to blush for him. “As you say. He’s good with incentives. See you around?”

 

Florian waved him away. “Be well.”

 

 

-

The factory had been a fish cannery once, and the walls still stunk of rancid oil. Moving towards the voices in the upper rooms, John carefully walked up the rickety metal steps. Whatever was going on, this gathering must involve numbers. He knew Bane preferred meeting places that were easier to vacate in a hurry. But the rooftops, back alleys and closed yards he favored didn’t hold that many people, and Bane had been steadily increasing the numbers of The Fire.

 

There were even women in the ranks now. They joined in on the tough workouts and drills that Bane insisted on. While John ran his own exercise program, one Bane had adapted to mornings in close quarters at St. Swithin’s, he knew it wasn’t as arduous as what his corps were asked to do.

 

Still, they came, and the GCPD didn’t seem to pay any attention to them. John had wondered if they were paying off any cops to look the other way at a little low-level dealing and passing on stolen electronics, but Malin had taken surprising offence when he suggested it. “Never. We’d never work with the pigs. They’re not interested in us, anyway. Enough of us are white, for a start, and Bane is one careful motherfucker.”

 

_Careful_. The word came back to John as he reached the doorway to the biggest room on the second floor. Joshua, one of Bane’s preferred brothers, was manning the door. He nodded at John and silently let him in.

 

There had been raised voices coming from the room seconds ago, but now only Bane was talking.

 

Around thirty people were sitting around two tables pushed together. Another fifteen or so were standing behind them. John stood to the side of the door, glaring away into the middle distance when looks were shot over at him. He couldn’t see Bane at first, who was sitting down in front of several spread-out documents. The people who’d noticed him returned their attention to the directions he was giving. It didn’t make much sense to John.

 

“Sector 5A, for the third dispatch. You will carry the gear northwards, through here-”

 

The observers shuffled forward to look. It must be maps, then.

 

“Team Bravo, you will be in sector 3 by then. Keep up contact with your brothers and sisters in the auxiliary group.”

 

Murmurs of acknowledgement passed through the room. Bane continued, “These plans will be destroyed today, but Alex is holding on to encrypted copies for all of you. Pick them up at the black spot tomorrow after thirteen hundred, understood?”

 

More nods and “Yeses” reverberated back to him.

 

“Dismissed. No more questions today. Your voices were appreciated.”

 

They moved out quickly, and John tried to sink in to the wall as he passed. Some of them gave him pointed looks, others let their eyes glide right over him.

 

Joshua closed the door behind the last to leave, and John heard the lock turn on them.

 

Bane was still sitting at the table looking over the ragged documents. His eyes stayed on the hand-drawn maps as he wordlessly extended an arm to John. John curled in to it, perching on one of Bane’s legs where it rested on the wide bench. As usual, his hands wrapped themselves under Bane’s shirt. He was nervous, both wanting and not wanting to ask any questions. Bane looked up, catching the anxiety in John’s eyes.

 

“What do they know about me?”

 

“They know that you are a brother. That is all.”

 

John let himself be less nervous. Bane was the only person who he could do that with.

 

“What is happening?”

 

“The May Day protests. You know about that.”

 

Shaking his head, John tried to get a better look at the maps. Bane folded them up.

 

“I don’t know about this. All Malin told me about was the No Shopping Day stall and the march at midday.”

 

“And that is all it is. I just want to make sure our people stay safe.”

 

“You think the police – ?”

 

“It is not unheard of, at worker’s rights protests.”

 

John shuffled his center of gravity over so that he was fully supported by Bane.

 

“I didn’t think safety was something you worried about.”

 

“I will never be safe, John. That is my choice. You will get there, too.”

 

“I wanna stay with you. When school is over.”

 

Bane stroked a hand through his hair. He looked at John with that carefulness Malin had mentioned. It made him feel feather-light and thin.

 

“I didn’t know what I was getting when I selected you, John. You have proved to be an  - an excellent ally.”

 

John swallowed hard. “An ally?”

 

“My brother. One of my lieutenants, perhaps, in future. Of course you are welcome to stay with us whenever you choose. I cannot think of a single member of The Fire as important as you in my long term plans.”

 

That made John’s brain short out. “Really?”

 

“Correct. But you do not understand why, not yet. But you trust me?”

  
“Yes. Yes!”

 

Bane nodded, satisfied.

 

“Then wait, John Blake. The future will come for you.”

 

 

-

After handing over the plans for Joshua to destroy, Bane led him to a smaller room at the west side of the building. It had three different padlocks on an already sturdy door, and as he waited for Bane to unlock them, he wondered out loud, “Doesn’t it bother you, the locks and chains on your doors? After being in prison.”

 

Bane lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug.

 

“Not when I have the keys.”

 

John made an attempt to wrestle once they entered, diving for Bane’s waist, but once he hit the floor his knees buckled on him and he collapsed. He wasn’t sure what it was that Bane had pulled out of him, but he let himself be held against his chest, breathing so hard spit covered his lips and chin. The room was small enough for every labored inhalation to sound as if it could be heard outside, but his panic was rubbed away by the strong hand on his back.

 

“I’m too weak,”

 

“Yes.”

 

Bane’s reply wrenched his lungs even tighter. “You don’t – ” He wanted to say _, mean that_ , but Bane only ever said what he meant.

 

“You are now, my John. But you are getting stronger. Everyone can see that, if they look. You say they are scared of you at school,”

 

John squirmed, trying to shrug it off. Part of his greedy mind had heard ‘my John’ and was boiling over with unwanted tenderness. “That’s just because of the late nights, the people I hang out with now. I used to care what they thought, and now, it’s funny, it doesn’t matter.”

 

“And now that you don’t care, they think more of you.”

 

John let go of the heavy jacket he’s been clinging to, and placed his hands evenly on Bane’s chest. “People are bizarre.”

  
“People are predictable.”

 

“Am I?”

 

Bending his head up, Bane looked down at him. They were both kneeling, which only emphasized how much taller he was. “No, you find ways to surprise me.”

 

Later they would fall to the camp bed set up in the corner. Bane’s weight made it tremble, but John refused to let him off. Setting a boot on the ground for support, he loomed above him and John took in the way the different quality of light brought out the broken lines of his scars. He wanted to come quickly, let Bane see how he affected him, but instead he had his own fist placed in his mouth as Bane’s fingers moved inside him for the first time.

 

“Too much?”

 

He kept shaking his head. _No_. The burn was overpowered by the feelings of enclosure and acceptance. This was as intimate as anything he’d ever shared with anyone, and he was experiencing it with Bane’s eyes fixed to his, bathed in the warmth of his attention.

 

When he did come, it was different, accompanied by the new twist in his guts and the blackly funny fact of what they were doing. He wasn’t grossed out at all, to his own surprise, instead it felt more natural than anything else. More than kneeling at some altar, or having to keep quiet at another family’s dinner table, or letting someone send him away without even saying why.

 

Lips touched his as he shook with the withdrawal of Bane’s hand.

 

“You bear pain well.”

 

John felt like it was more than a compliment. It was an acknowledgement of what they shared between them. He wasn’t weak the whole way through.

 

He wanted to kiss him back, afterwards, but Bane was already moving away, plans grinding away in his head.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

The jealousy was crouching deep in his system. At the factory, he’d half-fallen out of the camp bed and started pulling his clothes on, knowing that Bane still had a full evening of work ahead of him. He’d had a simple final question before he left.

 

“Next time, the hotel? Or here?”

 

“I’ll send word if there’s a change, but the hotel. Ask Joshua for the new entrance code.”

 

What Joshua didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing, it seemed to John, as he walked back to the home. His body felt different, both more durable and more delicate, and he found himself going slowly, dragging his feet.

 

He knew he should be happy. Bane had shared with him, his hopes for John in the future of The Fire and his body and skill. But his mind kept coming back to that final sentence and to Joshua’s small knowing eyes.

 

Blake could tell himself that it wasn’t fair of him to harbor suspicions, that Joshua was a brother, an ally, and that even if Bane took him to bed (he was bigger than John, more experienced, better looking, less weak…) (he didn’t know that, had no evidence of anything, Joshua was just a lackey) that was none of his business.

 

Brooding over Joshua took up most of his next few days. It had occurred to him before that Bane had many admirers, and that people felt they owed him something. John recognized that feeling. But the ones who came to him for help at the Lounge, and the members of The Fire, and the outer circle of contacts among the rest of Gotham’s underground, they had always seemed like distant entities to John. Bane had made him feel so special and singled-out that he had even joked about it, asking him once while they were in bed why he was teaching John Spanish instead of finding a native speaker.

“There’s a whole building of Catholic high school girls over at 56th Avenue and lots of them speak Spanish. You’d just have to smile at them.”

 

John made a wide smile to show him what he meant. Bane tried to copy it.

 

“OK. Maybe not.”

 

But Bane had never given him reason to be jealous, because Bane didn’t know what jealousy was. He didn’t believe in any other social obligations so why would he only have sex with one person? And he doesn’t even have it with me, John thought, misery building on misery in his chest, he just lets me come everywhere because he can make me and then when I feel his hard-on he always pulls away.

 

Lying awake in the stuffy dorm room, John pictured Joshua and Bane together. After all he done with Bane, his imagination could put them in some fairly convincing positions. He thought about them laughing about him, or not even thinking of him, which was somehow even worse. The pain of it stung, but it was a sweet sting he couldn’t resist going over and over as his limbs felt too big for the bed and his heart scraped at the bindings of his chest.

 

The next morning he was tired and cranky. Ashamed over his melodramatics, he knew he would see Bane tonight, and then he’d just ask him. If he wanted to live without fear he had to confront it. A man who’d spent his childhood in one of the world’s worst jails wouldn’t respect him for running from his own mind.

 

 

 -

 

Bane had decided to shift hotel rooms as the days grew lighter. John helped him move the last of the computers. His new lair was towards the back of the building, one floor up, in a room with an uncommonly big _en suite_ bathroom. Bane had been perplexed by the emptied space. “The fittings are too high up for a bath. I don’t understand their construction.”

 

“It was a spa bath, Bane. That was probably the honeymoon suite.”

 

Following Bane’s look, he put the tangled cables down and made a rough shape with his hands. “A really big bath, like a hot tub…they have these jets that make the water frothy. If you’re a rapper or a reality TV contestant, it’s compulsory to get in them often, with lots of women in small bikinis.”

 

Bane gave a huff of aggrieved acknowledgement for the mental image. “Such wastefulness.”

 

“Didn’t your ancient Greeks and Romans like bathing?”

 

Lifting an eyebrow, Bane neatly tucked the cable John was passing him behind the back of the desk to the phone jack. They were borrowing the connection from a nearby exchange that had recently opened following Gotham’s fiber extension plans. John understood that several yards of cable had fallen off a truck in exchange for The Fire’s protection at a few union meetings. 

 

Soon one of the hard drives was whooshing with life, and John started packing up boxes as Bane ran it through a few paces. Bent over the desk with his hands over the keyboard, he was engrossed with the streaming lines of code. Coming up behind him, John dared to place a hand on his back, feeling the hum of pleasure buzz through his spine. It was almost a purr, the little noises he made when truly content with something.

 

He could stand there forever and watch Bane at work. But after half a minute Bane started up a command to launch a back-up program and stood up decisively.

 

“It is done. Thank you for the help.”

 

John shrugged, still clinging to his side. “I like it. It helps me learn.”

 

Bane turned to him. “You have a quick mind, you take to the machines well. If we got you in to the University’s programming courses,”

 

That made John step back in shock. “What?”

 

Reaching forward for him with both hands, Bane pulled him closer. “Merely an idea. I thought you might enjoy that field, and obviously it would be useful for me to have the access. You do not want a college degree?”

 

Shaking his head clear, John tried to come up with a response. “It’s not – Father Reilly always tells us to aim high, but almost no one makes it from the home to Gotham State. It’s community college or trade school.” He shrugged. “I never thought beyond…”

 

Trailing off, he smiled and tried to distract Bane by pulling in closer and unbuttoning the rough army shirt he was wearing. John had spent the last few years planning to get out of school as soon as possible and make some money. He was strong enough for physical labor, and knew if he stayed clean he could pick up jobs with a construction crew or house movers. He didn’t tell Father Reilly this, who was always reminding John that if he kept his grades up “the sky is the limit, son.”

 

John knew that wasn’t true. His parents hadn’t gone to college, and none of his almost-friends at the home would, either. Some money in his pocket, if he stayed fit and was careful, he could do what he wanted. Get a place with a room of his own, that no one could throw him out of. That was as far as he’d thought his future through. Now he knew lots of people who thought property was theft, but as far as John was concerned if he had a home no greasy punks from the Lounge would ever convince him it wasn’t his.

 

Gotham State. That was another world, as far as John was concerned. Bane might as well say they would send him to the Moon.

 

“I wanted to ask you something.” Leaning on his tip toes, he nuzzled at Bane’s jaw, and clamped his teeth lightly around one soft earlobe. Bane liked that, liked any friction around the side of his neck where the muscle flowed to his shoulder.

 

Bane gave out that same pleased grumble. John could feel it where his hand pressed to his chest. “Your question?”

 

“Will you ever fuck me?”

 

One hand landed on John’s lower back and pinched his waist. “You think you know what you are asking?”

 

Still breathing in to Bane’s ear, John kept his tone light. “No. But how will I learn otherwise? And I know what I desire. I’m not scared of it anymore, Bane.”

 

“And it is?”

 

Slowing moving his palms up the broad chest he’d uncovered, John leaned his neck back to look Bane in the eye.

 

“You. It’s always been you. I like how you’ve treated me, and I – I used to get jealous of the people who got to have you, all of you, in bed. But I know now that it’s worthless feeling that when I can ask.”

 

He tried to keep his eyes steady. He wasn’t scared, or angry, at this moment. Just alive with so much energy he felt like he could shake right out of his skin if Bane let him go.

 

“Jealous?” Bane gripped him closer, and John’s balance gave out. He thumped up against Bane’s chest. Eye contact was harder, now.

 

“Well. Yeah. Of the others.”

 

“There are not any like you, my John.” A hand stroked his hair back. John could feel the sweat on his brow.

 

“Our arrangement can change if you want.” Taking his hands from where they clung to his thick pectoral muscles, Bane moved them to his belt. He lifted an eyebrow and John nodded eagerly in response.

 

“I want.”

 

Bane nodded, and kissed his forehead. “Undress yourself first, and I will stoke the fire. Then my clothes.”

 

Shedding his layers as quickly as possible, John kept his eyes on Bane’s back. He’d realized that a fire was more than a source of heat to him, it was some essential part of whatever they did together and it seemed to soothe Bane, slow his mind down, to stare in to the flames.

 

Turning away from the brazier, he faced John, who fell to his knees and began working on the hefty steelcapped boots. He’d grown to love these boots, getting surprised when they showed up in his nighttime fantasies about Bane, and he let himself make a meal out of rolling the laces between his fingers and sliding them off.

Socks (woolen, German – that was important, apparently), then back up to his half-undone shirt. The fire crackled behind them as Bane lifted his arms with all the carefree ease of a man getting fitted for a suit. John couldn’t resist kissing the centre of his chest, then folding the shirt neatly and setting it aside. Belt next. He realized he had a very clear order of how this was going to happen, and Bane was happy to be led by his empty belt loops towards the mattress.

  
He traced the circumference of his hips where it lay just beneath his cargos. The farthest south his fingers had travelled on Bane’s bare skin was this line here. Stroking, he let his face lie against the warm skin of his stomach and felt hands lightly skim over his shoulders and upper back.

 

Bane was giving him time, and permission, he realized, to do what he wanted. It felt like they were outside of time in the middle of a ritual, something that was almost sacred. This was the feeling that church always tried to summon up in people, John thought as someone else’s pulse beat under his finger tips. This was what awe was like.

 

The zipper got stuck. John choked on a laugh as he fiddled with it. Bane was too stacked to slide his pants down over his ass without upfastening them, a fact John confirmed with a long squeeze. His glutes were like steel under the thick fabric of his boxer briefs.

 

They were Calvin Klein. Another surprise, but then John added it up in his head. There had been talk of a ‘discount’ on designer clothes at the Lounge the other week, amidst much criticism of fashion labels and the reappropriation of streetwear from the mainstream. So some deal had scored The Fire a supply of fifty-dollar underwear, and of course Bane would wear them under his usual army supply uniform.

 

Gently lifting each leg up, he stooped low to take the puddled cargos off his ankles and tossed them far away from the flames. He let his fingers rub in to the corded muscles of Bane’s calves. They must hurt him, so thick with knots, but Bane had had enough of waiting by then and prodded John’s shoulders. He sat back on the bed, letting his eyes roam. Bane turned to take the underwear off and deposit them on the pile of clothes behind them, giving John a view of the ropes of scars that lay over his back.

 

He kept his eyes on the rippled flesh of Bane’s shoulder as he turned back and lowered himself down to lie down on the mattress. Then he let himself look.

 

John noticed two things. Bane was big. Bane was uncut.

 

Bane was _big_.

 

The hollow feeling in his stomach was replaced with new certainty. Something was being re-written in John, with every fearless act he made. It was such a convincing sensation that he smiled wide enough to make his cheeks hurt, to imprint the joy right in to his flesh.

 

This was what Bane was giving him. The ability to keep this version of himself. Where he was rolling around on a mattress in an abandoned hotel with a man who was beholden to no one. Who had chosen him.

 

Bane gracefully folded himself down to let their body heat combine down the middle of the bedding. Lifting up his left thigh, John rolled so that their bodies were facing each other, and looped his leg over Bane’s hip. It made a perfect small space for his hand to reach down and map out just how all this _big_ felt in his hand. Bane’s cock rose for him, a motion so fluid and confident that it seemed perfectly in character.

 

Bane was watching where John’s hand was clumsily stroking. John could feel his eyes on his face, which made his attempts at grappling that much more clumsy. It was too much like being supervised by a teacher, so John pressed his face closer for a kiss, and soon they fell together making out and grinding in lazy circles as the wooden pallets supporting them groaned.

 

This was good for John, the best, all the weight on him, but his concentration scattered between wet mouths and rapid hands. After all this time he knew Bane was letting him take a degree of control. That made him so hard he felt Bane re-adjust to let his hard-on settle in to the cut of his hip. 

 

Pushing up, he lost track of his hands for a second, and had to re-group. Looking down he focused on the different sensation – having this immense muscle in hand – and how delicate Bane was here. He fingered over the foreskin, which rolled down to reveal his slit. There wasn’t enough light in the close space they made but he could feel the liquid gathering at the tip as it peeked between his grasping fingers. His neck would’ve cramped from being held up at this angle but Bane was supporting it with one arm, the other hand stroking in staccato beats down his rib cage.

 

He knew Bane was holding back, could feel his heart beat pulse urgently in his grip. They were both sweat-slicked and trembling. John’s voice came out between them like smoke from a candle.

 

“What do you want?”

 

Bane jostled him so he was lying back completely, their legs interleaved, his arms either side of John’s head.

 

“What I always want. To watch you come again.”

 

John’s cock nearly spun at hearing that.

 

Keeping John’s mouth occupied with his tongue, Bane moved their hips together and ground them down. He reached for John’s hand and placed it on his back for support. It was needed once he began thrusting with more strength, letting more of his weight on John’s lower half. The pressure was immediate, and John mindlessly raised his hips to meet it in rhythm. Holding on to Bane with one leg and two grasping arms, he shuddered and came.

 

Rearing back, Bane kneeled over him. Placing one of John’s hands inside his, he swiped down his own erection with a bone-crushing force.

                         

When he came, it was hot and sticky over John’s stomach and chest. It looked ghostly pale over his flushed skin, and he drew a finger through it. Meeting Bane’s look, he raised it to his mouth and sucked.

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

In the third floor office, there were two leather-backed chairs for visitors. Boys always sat on the wooden bench pressed up to the wall. John stalked past it and threw himself in to one of the adult seats, glowering at the priest who was slowly taking his own seat opposite him. Father Reilly swallowed, glanced down, as if taking a moment to acknowledge the lack of greeting. He spoke low and evenly.

 

"Andre told me he saw you push Felix last night."

 

John gripped the arms of his chair in fury. Felix was one of the little kids, a shy one, he'd been playing in the doorway as he was trying to get out of the dorm, and "I just moved past him. Didn't push him. Did Andre say I had?"

 

The anger stormed inside him. "As if I'd hit one of the kids, Father. You know me."

 

"I thought I did."

 

This would be a good time for blasphemy, but John settled for rolling his eyes. "I can't believe you're saying that to me."

 

"You've changed markedly this year. I asked Felix what happened and he was too scared to say anything."

 

"Scared of me?" That was crazy.

 

"Everyone is - taken aback by you. You used to play with all the young ones, every day, and now,"

 

"Now I don't take up Sister Philo's slack, you mean?" Philomena was meant to run the afterschool group for the under-8s. She wasn't, as far as John could make out, regarded very highly by a single staff member of St. Swithin's and he’d long since decided she was incompetent. It never bothered him before this year because he had been happy to get them on the basketball court or reading from Dr. Seuss in the common room. Of course that was back when he had spare time.

 

Father Reilly looked down, stifling a sigh. Before he could respond John continued.

 

"You want to treat me like another caregiver when it suits you, but talk down to me like I'm a child."

 

"You don't think you're acting like one?"

 

Throwing up his hands in exasperation, John spat back. "What is it you want? I have permission to take study leave. My grades are up. You know Andre's full of it. He probably doesn't even know Felix's name. He never gave a damn about anyone -"

The priest winced at the swearword. John continued without apology "-but himself and those NBA players he puts up on the wall, he skips most of his classes, and steals phone cards off the other kids. But I'm sitting here getting accused."

 

Father Reilly kept his hands peaked, leaning on his knees. "John. When I gave you the free after school hours it was to do school work."

 

"And I study! Look at my grades. Ask my teachers."

 

"I talked to them. They're concerned about you, too."

 

John leaned forward to face him. "They're concerned about nothing. They're too bogged down by their own mediocrity to notice a single real thing."

 

"You have no respect." His tone was resigned, not angry. That only wound John up more.

 

"What for? Their lack of attention? Or their age and experience - it counts for nothing if they make nothing of it. Or what? This place? How many of us will even end up in jobs, Father? Or in jail? You ever do the numbers on that?"

 

His reply was quiet, as if he was speaking to himself and not John. "Every night."

 

John stood up. "I'm not here for your preaching. Find something I've done wrong, and punish me for it. Be as inconsistent with the rules as you feel like, if it makes you happier."

 

"We can suspend your allowance and enforce your curfew. You are out too late almost every night. I didn't say anything because - like everyone, I feel like you're a powder keg."

 

"You're just scared of life."

 

"John -”

 

"What is it, Father?" He put as much sarcasm in it as he could.

 

"I know more of what life can do to a young man than you can imagine."

 

"I doubt that, somehow." He moved to leave. John had never left this office without express orders to before. It had been, up until this evening, impossible.

 

"I didn't say you could go."

 

Hand on the doorknob, he shot a look behind him. "What could you have to say?"

 

The priest seemed very tired, sitting under the plaque of the hands clasped in prayer that had been fixed on the wall since the Flood. Father Reilly was young for a man in his position, and he had always tried to relate with John, treat him like they could be friends one day. He’d shown his frailty to John, that much was apparent now.

 

This time he waved him goodbye, a bit of affection that riled John up even more.  He slammed the heavy door behind him on the way out.

 

Across the landing he could see a small face pressed up against the stair banisters. It was Felix. John raised a hand to wave, and Felix blanched and scurried away.

 

Thirty minutes later John had Andre pinned against the wall in the first floor bathroom. He was two inches shorter than Andre and didn’t have the natural heft of the other kid, but then Andre hadn’t been tussling with Bane for a couple of months.

 

Andre was looking like Felix had. Scared. John was disgusted by himself. That he’d let this coward ever intimidate him. Such weakness. Pressing his fingers in to the soft pocket of flesh above Andre’s collar bone, he whispered to him, “You’re a nothing to me.”

 

Slamming his fist in to Andre’s stomach and standing back, John watched the kid fold in on himself. It had been so easy, he thought, feeling detached. The incident was already on edit in his mind as he prepared a story to tell Bane.

 

John headed for the door with focus on what he needed to get done before the next meeting. He needed to research the things Bane had mentioned, and look in to how quickly he could extract himself from the care system and the overview of the state. The school year would be up soon enough, he figured he’d best plan how to leave and become a full part of The Fire at last. The sound of a stall door crashing open followed by deep retching told him all he needed to know about what St. Swithin’s had to offer him.  

 

-

 

The hotel room was barely lit. The fire had burned down to embers. It was hours past John’s curfew, something that barely exists for him anymore. That afternoon had erased any scrap of importance for the rules of the home right out of his mind. Earlier that evening John had told Bane that if Reilly wanted to start a disciplinary action against him he could go ahead, John would just leave earlier. Bane agreed with him. Their people could take care of John now, he said. If a social worker tried to come to one of the squats, they would get seen off quickly, and case files could get lost. People could disappear. Bane did.

 

John rolled on his stomach and stretched an arm out over Bane’s chest.

 

“What happened, after they sprang you from Peña Duro?”

  
“I went from a cell to many offices and waiting rooms. I still had guards around me, all the time. There were lawyers, all fretting over me. I wasn’t supposed to exist, you know, and as a detainee by US government, various global laws and regulations were meant to kick in.”

 

“I’m surprised they didn’t try to make it public – for the shock value, alone.”

 

Bane shook his head slightly. “I was a pawn. Many powerful men were in Peña Duro, and they had a lot of money on either side of the border. They wanted me off the books. They were careful about having very little paperwork. But not careful enough not to talk in English around me, thinking I wouldn’t understand. Eventually they put me in the care of a woman, Ms. Young. Another lawyer, a junior one. One who could be given responsibility and no power.

“She did me a favor, Ms. Young. She had a computer in her apartment, and books – many books. About America, and the law, and the system.”

 

John stroked over one of the older scars, the one over his left shoulder. “What did you do to her?”

 

A shrug. “Let her feel better by taking care of the poor damaged refugee boy.”

 

John said, “The release date was February 16th, according to the official records, when prisoners were shipped out and then relocated over the next three months while their trials went on.”

  
“New trials for old crimes, yes. I was removed earlier than that – in January. I had enemies in there who wanted to keep an eye on me. It made it easier for me to jump, once I had all the information I needed from Ms. Young.”

 

“You stayed in her house?” John didn’t want to know how Bane had made enemies.

 

“An apartment building, in Greenvale Heights. With a guard on the door. These guards, private contractors, not even cops, no trouble to get out. I left with nothing but the clothes on my back and one of her kitchen knives. Went downtown, found that there were people living off the state’s grid. Saw my enemies from the Pit sent to maximum security prisons, watching it on TV with my first friends.”

 

He sounded almost wistful. John licked at the salty skin of his shoulder.

 

“Did they give you the name?”

 

“The punks? No, I was called Bane in prison. Once outside, I knew that people would like the mystery of it. No one online uses their real name, they all want to be someone else.”

 

“John isn’t my real name, you know.”

 

Bane kissed him. “I know. I found your school records.”

 

-

 

Having Bane’s fingers inside him made John feel safe. It should’ve been ridiculous, and he would always blush over it later, but it never felt like that when they were together. It was even better than coming in some ways – a different hill for them to climb. Bane is always so careful, so wary of hurting him. But he knew better than John did what his body could take. When John wriggles back up on his hand he got a smack on the ass to be still, which made John smile all the harder.

 

They started up on this tonight after John’s first attempt at sucking cock. Planning it ahead of time in his head, it had seemed like an achievable goal. It had been on his mind constantly, even more after he’d finally had Bane and witnessed his orgasm. There was just the matter of logistics to conquer. But John was hyped up after making Andre back down and getting through all 350 of the push-ups Bane had set him at the beginning of the month.

 

In the face of John’s ambition, Bane was skeptical. It took John a minute to work out why. He was sulkily toying with his belted cargo pants, letting Bane stroke his hair back, both of them quiet after all the talk about the Pit. Whatever Bane told him about Peña Duro he never said much about how he survived and what was done to him. Stretching a hand out across Bane’s thigh, he offered again.

 

“I’ll stop if it hurts too much.”

 

Bane rumbled in contemplation above him. It wasn’t a rejection. John pressed at the zipper.

 

“I’m offering to try, you’re not making me.”

 

“I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

 

“Bane. You’ve sucked me off how many times? Let me try.”

 

Part of him wanted to insist more, but he kept still, and let his fingers pull at Bane’s belt again with more determination.

 

Bane leaned back and allowed him enough room to get the zipper down and tug his penis free from his ridiculous designer underwear. The sudden proximity of his cock, not quite hard yet but still very materially present, physically affected John. He felt shivery all over and some rusty portal clanged open in his mind. Maybe it was the release valve of all that Catholic repression they’d tried to drill into him. Stroking over it, he was struck by the texture of silken skin and delicate, tenacious veins in charge of blood flow, and the smell that was not quite familiar but attractive.

Bane’s foreskin slid delightfully under his fingertips. Determined not to overthink this, a trick Bane had taken the time to hammer in to his reactions during sex, John lowered his mouth and sucked lightly at a tiny fold of skin.

 

Generally quiet during sex, this made Bane snort and gasp. They were private noises, surprised ones – nicely surprised, John worked out, as he felt the increased stiffening under his hands.

 

Letting himself grip a little tighter now, he poked his tongue down the centre of the head, still wrapped in skin, and tried to stretch his lips around it.

 

Either he breathed in too quickly or didn’t breathe at all, because after a few seconds suction his chest seized and he had to pull off and gag. Bane had the audacity to pat him on the shoulder in sympathy, and he looked up him sharply with drool hanging off his chin. Which made Bane grumble in amusement.

 

“Wait, let me try again.”

 

Bane lifted his palms up in affected gratitude. John snarled, and set back to work.

 

It was fascinating to get this close to another cock. Particularly Bane’s cock, as it was big and kind of alien, and John had moments of feeling awestruck and privileged as he worked his mouth over it with big sloppy kisses. He also felt a little smug at having the leader of The Fire be so vulnerable in his hands. The muscle filled up hard under his touch, and John’s own dick was reacting the same way. It was like making a loop between the two of them.

 

But it was also really hard on the jaw. After long triumphant minutes of kissing and caressing  John switched back to sucking, and gagged hard. Calloused fingertips brushed against his cheek. “I do not enjoy seeing you hurt yourself.”

 

John’s voice came out bruised and raw. “I need practice.”

 

“You need nothing, you’re perfect.”

 

He snorted and ducked down to try again.

 

The foreskin had retracted around the bulky head, slickened with spit and pre-come. John tried to focus just on this, but the muscles of his mouth objected even when he took it slowly. It was as if he was trying to eat too much on a full stomach. Saliva dripped down his chin but his palate felt intensely dry. A cough kept tickling the back of his throat.

 

Strong arms yanked him up to Bane’s chest. “While I admire your perseverance, John, there are other things I intended for you tonight. Will you let me?”

 

Sinking down to the mattress, John begrudgingly let Bane get him a bottle of water and strip him down with firm hands.

 

By this time Bane knew how to make his body unravel. John soaked up all the attention, lying back and relaxing against the mattress so that Bane could press his arms above his head and move his knees up into right angles. Trailing his hand down John’s spine, he murmured to himself, “So flexible.”

 

It was easy, letting it happen. Bane went so slowly with his hand, keeping eye contact with John the whole time. He hooked his right leg up and across his chest and felt his entrance being patted at. It wasn’t quite ticklish, but still amusing, and John laughed all the way through the first finger.

 

Clamping his teeth over John’s shoulder, Bane pushed another digit in place. John knew to breathe slow at that point. It wasn’t the pain, it was the adjustment. Time felt thick like syrup and his hard-on lay untouched against his left thigh.

 

The space between them grew smaller, until it felt like there was no space at all. John’s head lolled back and he let himself smile and sigh and not think much of anything. That was for tomorrow, or later, the walk home. Bane’s teeth were gritty up and down his arm, and his dick pressed in to the back of John’s leg.

 

Something inside him was igniting with Bane’s pressure. He squawked a little, pushing back to try and encourage the touch. Humming with satisfaction, Bane pushed him back in to place and worked at that spot.

 

“Hands up, John.”

 

They’d flown to grasp his cock automatically. Obediently, he moved them to Bane’s shoulders. Another twist did it. Gasping and keening, he came all over himself.

 

Bane moved his right leg back so that John was laying with his knees either side of him. He was still inside John, who got the hint and reached for Bane’s neglected hard-on and worked it over with firm hands. Seconds later, his release hit in viscous stripes over John’s chest.

 

He knew it was gross, but he pulled at Bane’s arms to bring them together. Bane followed, panting lightly, sealing them for a while with their own come.

 

It couldn’t last long, but John used the last of his energy to kiss him. Then Bane was moving up and away. John knew he’d be getting a rag to clean them up, then he’d have to dress and get back. It was later than he’d stayed here before and some dim voice in his head told him he should move. But the softness in his limbs and empty ache in his ass were more persuasive, and he let his eyelids fall shut. Just for a minute, he figured, he’d gather his strength and then leave.

 

He fell asleep almost instantly. It was seven hours later when he woke up.

 

-

 

The morning light didn’t reach the hotel room, and it was still dark when John came to with a start. For a second he didn’t know where he was, and his mind ran through the bedrooms of every foster placement he’d ever had. Then his eyes focused on the power cords snaking along the floor. He listened for the sound of another person, but the room was empty. He was lying curled on his side. Warm and dry under two unzipped sleeping bags, he found he couldn’t summon up any real panic. It felt too right.

 

But it was morning, and he liked to be up early. That was when he worked out. Which made getting up instinctual, and kept his movements careful and quiet. There was no hum coming from the computers, which meant Bane had shut them down or the erratic power supply routed from the discount supermarket had cut out again.

 

Standing up and taking in what he could see of the room, his heart began to race. He’d never ever spent a whole night away from the home with no notice. When kids tried to run away, a police report went out, and Father Reilly usually took to the streets to find them. Sometimes he’d recruit other boys to look with him, like John. That was back when they’d trusted each other.

 

Bane had folded his clothes and left them on a chair near the bedding. On top of his bag was a note. John tucked it inside, knowing it was still too dark to read. He’d save it for the walk back to St. Swithin’s. It might distract him a little from what was waiting for him once he arrived.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

“Could they have gotten a bigger crucifix for this place?”

 

Malin nodded at the cross perched over the entrance to the gymnasium. She and John were leaning on opposite sides of the school fence, watching the milling students squint at afternoon sun and pretend not to look over at the grown woman talking intently with some kid.

 

“Subtlety is not a prized feature in containment facilities. You should see the one they have at church, eyes upturned, dripping blood everywhere.”

 

She cackled. “So how bad is it? Your punishment, for missing curfew and making the baby Jesus cry and everything?”

 

“Just medium-level bad. I’m effectively grounded until kingdom come, I had to write apology letters to the night warden and one of my teachers, who for some goddamn reason spent a night looking for me. Instead of a bunch of Hail Marys, I got an extra essay project, double laundry duty, and polishing every light fitting in the home – don’t laugh, it’s an old building, they’re all brass and covered in grime.”

 

Malin shook her head. “Stuck inside until Judgment Day. He figured, and asked me to come say hi. Well, he didn’t say _hi_.”

 

John smiled despite himself. “He wouldn’t.”

 

It was touching to be checked in on. Bane had said in his note that he knew the consequences of spending the night would be high for him. He expected John to adjust for them as he saw fit.

 

He didn’t write ‘my John’ or anything implying that he cared. John knew that was because it wasn’t safe to leave a record. He knew for certain what that night had meant for both of them. That’s why this punishment barely touched him.

 

Malin blew her hair off her face, keeping her arms crossed. “So hi. From all of us. Jo wanted to make you a cake but I guessed it’d be contraband, so you’ll have to bust out again to come and eat cake with us.”

 

“Awesome. Really. I know I sound like I’m kidding, but I know how this place works. A few weeks and they’ll be more concerned with some other juvenile delinquent. I just have to visibly suffer for them for a while.”

 

“High school is hell. Don’t worry, kid, you’ll be out soon and the world will be better. More complex, but you can deal with complex.”

 

John sighed. “It’s not going to be over for a while yet. I may miss the beginning of May Day.”

 

Her forehead creased. She paused, and then asked him, “What has he asked you to do on May Day?”

 

John frowned. “Nothing? Because I can’t make it downtown when the protest starts, so I have no assigned role, but I can be there soon after. I offered to help Asha at the Food Not Bombs stand and she said it was cool if I was late.”

 

She brightened. “Great. That’s great. Asha runs a good stall, and it’s close to the railway station.”

 

“Why should that matter?”

 

She took his hand in hers through the railings. “These things can get heated. People can be stupid, you know? And the cops get itchy - I don’t want to be bailing you out of anything.”

 

He crooked a smile at her, trying to throw off her concern.

 

“What if you need help, huh? Maybe I’ll have to smack a pig over to save you.”

 

Her laugh was dry. He liked that about her.

 

“Don’t sweat it, kid. I have been there before. See you on the day.”

 

She let go of his hand.

 

“See ya.”

 

Of course the protest would get heated. John wanted it to, he figured everyone would, but Malin was softhearted when it came to these things. She would never be on any battlements. That was fine, John knew that Bane didn’t expect her to do anything like that.

 

They hadn’t talked much about the May Day projects since John walked in to the meeting at the factory. Hazard, one of the newer female recruits in The Fire, had ambushed him coming out of the Lounge a week later to ask him if he was bringing “any of your little schoolfriends along.”

 

He’d been pissed off at her tone, and she read his expression right and got angry in turn. “Look, you’re meant to be infiltrating – you’re the drop of ink in the water.”

 

It was a reference to one of Bane’s posts on the message board. John had only seen it once before it had been erased, but the gist was that if you were part of the cause but not fully living in it, it was your responsibility to take the message back to your job, your college dorm, your classrooms, your straight life – to free others and spread the truth. Like a drop of ink in clear water.

 

He got it, but he didn’t like her attitude. Just because he wasn’t living in one of the illegally occupied warehouses or sublet apartments that were the designated living areas of The Fire and had to go to school didn’t make him any less committed. John wasn’t one of these slumming suburbanites who didn’t care about the cause of worker’s liberation and just wanted to get high. It was just that he could hardly go around recruiting snotty-nosed kids without getting snapped by Reilly or Principal Dukakis. It was tough enough for him to get time away as it was.

 

John said something non-committal and walked away before he got in to a fight. Like all members of The Fire, Hazard was drilled by Bane, and she could hit hard enough to hurt. Plus she was one of the twitchy ones who he suspected was on speed. It was the drug of choice for most of the hardcore. John knew that if they weren’t hustling dime bags for Bane, many of The Fire worked stockroom jobs or in janitorial crews, the kinds of gigs that almost demanded pharmaceutical support. Still, he didn’t like being around people jacked up on anything, and he knew Bane considered it an allowable but unfortunate weakness.

 

They needed them, at this point, the speedfreaks and the desperate, to fill out the numbers. But John knew as The Fire grew stronger they could be more discerning. Bane wanted more discipline, and he kept the drug trade going as no more than a revenue stream to build the community. By the time John could commit full-time, be at his right hand, they will have found new ways to support themselves. Bane had talked about it with him already. Necessity, first, but in the future…something with computers, he thought. Bane was a decent base-level hacker, but didn’t have the time to increase his skills. They were recruiting more among the web underground in Gotham and beyond, and May Day would be an advertisement for The Fire. To show other radicals that they were serious.

 

Being grounded meant that John didn’t just have to sign in when he returned to St. Swithin’s, he had to present himself to an authority figure and have them sign him in. Conveniently for John, the home was so short-staffed that dorm leaders were considered adequate for this role, and they were easily bribed. John had no intention of breaking his punishment for anything minor – it would be a while until he got to eat cake around the table at the back of the Lounge with Jo and Malin – but he was going to make some appearance at May Day and try to find a way to see Bane. The protests were in one week’s time.

 

-

 

DeWitt sat down in the chair next to John at the library. It was the day after Malin had come to see him, and John was busy reading what he could find about that Haymarket Square massacre. He'd wanted to do his American History essay on it, but Mr. Ferris had said no and assigned him the Supreme Court's McCulloch v. Maryland decision of 1819. He was still going to write about what he wanted for the Lounge's zine library, and was busy taking notes on the back of his legitimate schoolwork and strongly ignoring the twitchy kid on his right. Probably sent over by Andy to score some weed. John doubted DeWitt even knew what the inside of the library looked like before today.

 

Reading on, he disregarded the pencil DeWitt was tapping on the table. John had lived most of the last few years in a dorm room. He was very good at filtering out distractions.

 

The pencil jabbed his side. Swiftly pivoting from the waist, he grabbed it off of him and snapped it in half. Dumping the broken ends on the desktop he kept his eyes on the books. Like hell he was giving out his attention for pissy little kid stunts like that.

 

DeWitt just sat. He didn’t pick up his pencil or move, even when Mrs. Jenkins came past with her book trolley. John made a note to read up on the Chicago Eight. 

 

“Blake, for serious – ”

 

“No.”

 

There was so much to take in, and May Day was coming up. He’d wanted to spend the whole day at the protest, hanging out with Asha serving up free bowls of dahl, meeting people who he’d only seen as pseuds on message boards, getting hooked up with new ideas and more data on this sprawling, wild alternative history that no one had ever bothered teaching him. DeWitt was whispering something. John wrote NO on a scrap of legal pad and pushed it over.

 

A minute passed. Pencil scrawled on paper, and got pushed back.

 

_You know about how 85 + Down gonna rip up that protest?_

85 and Down were a street gang that had splintered off from an older faction. They had built a rep quickly, the old-fashioned way, with drive-bys and flashy cars bought with crack rocks. They belonged at a celebration of worker’s rights as much as John belonged at the Gotham Debutante’s Ball.

 

“How would you know?”

 

John’s tone made DeWitt flinch again, and looking up at his softened eyes, John finally remembered Topher. DeWitt’s older half-brother. Long since aged out of St. Swithin’s and in to all kinds of shady shit. A few weeks ago he’d overheard someone mention that he was made in the 85. It hadn’t meant much to John back then.

 

Swiping his eyes around the room, he leaned back in to whisper, “Topher told you this? Was it a warning?”

 

DeWitt shook his head. “Nah. He wanted me along.”

 

He didn’t even bother to hide his fear from John. It was like the last few months hadn’t happened, and they were back in the laundry room, reading contraband Wrestlemania magazines with Andy.

 

“What’s the point of them hitting May Day? There will be cops everywhere.”

 

As DeWitt leaned back to reply, Mrs. Jenkins came around the corner again. John made as if to show him a diagram of how a Supreme Court ruling was reached.

 

Once she’d moved out of hearing range, an area every care home kid knew precisely, DeWitt whispered at him, “That’s the point – they’ll blame the protestors.”

 

John could see it all so clearly. Jo and Asha with their bowls of food, Malin handing out flyers, and then police surging forward with batons. The Fire would take this as a cue to stop playing bodyguards and start enforcing public disobedience. There wasn’t enough of them to make any real difference to a riot squad, just to break a few more bones.

 

He thought of Bane. Ready for battle, all of the time. With his lack of paperwork and formal identity. Bane wouldn’t let himself be stuck in another cell. Would he be caught, tried and extradited? Get deported?

 

“Thank you.” He said it reluctantly, not wanting to have any of this conversation in his head. Without looking behind him he left the books open on the table and ran out.

 

-

 

It was mid-afternoon. Bane would be somewhere near a computer, John thought, and if the power supply was holding out, the hotel was the safest bet.

 

From the outside the building looked the same. John felt the usual mixture of anticipation and adrenaline coursing through him as he fumbled through the key code and raced through the neglected hallways. But he was also breathless with dread, and underneath that, something else. It came to him as he was climbing up the rope ladder. Pride. At having important information for Bane. Bringing it to him like a proud cat dumps a dead mouse at their owner’s feet. 

 

_Dumb_ , he told himself. _And cocky._ The last of his self-importance drained out of him when he reached Bane’s floor. He had been in such a rush to get here that he hadn’t thought what he might come across, uninvited. Walking down the corridor with its chintzy wallpaper his ears were sensitive to any sounds from the corner room: a meeting. A fight. People having sex. Joshua…

 

Something caught his eye as he approached the turn in the hallway. A mirror, up high, angled to show Bane’s room’s inhabitant who ever was coming towards them. He waved a hand at it, like breaking a spell.

 

“Bane?”

 

There was the creak of old furniture shifting under someone’s weight.

 

“John?”

 

“I’m sorry to,” John was still hesitant as he was walking in, even as he took in the familiar room with the neatly-made bedding, piles of books, and Bane sat by the glowing computer. Alone. “Burst in. Like this. But I had to,”

 

“You’ve been running. Sit down. Is something wrong?”

 

His legs felt like jelly as he sank in to the canvas chair by the desk. “I have to tell you something. About May Day. I think it may be important – but I’m not sure. I don’t want to, to,”

 

The words wouldn’t come now. Bane was focused on him, after shuffling around his own chair to face John, looking more concerned than he typically did. Or perhaps John was getting better at reading him.

 

Getting hold of his breath, he starts in on DeWitt’s story. Everything he’d been told barely thirty minutes ago. “And, I know he’s just a dumb kid – but I trust him on this one. Topher is not fucking around. I only know the guy by reputation but it’s enough that even those gross old skinheads who hang out near our block stopped yelling racial stuff at DeWitt.”

 

Bane tips his head to one side. It didn’t give much more away. John finished up. “So, that’s it. Just a rumor.”

 

“A rumor. John, I first heard this news less than twelve hours ago. My people thought they were acting fast. You found it out while grounded at Catholic School.”

 

John snaps in shock, “Twelve hours – so what, what’s happened?”

 

“I have brokered a deal. A treaty, you could say. Let’s assume it will hold. It’s certainly in these 85’s people’s best interest.”

 

“You knew already.”

 

“And I remain impressed. You have consistently surprised me with your resourcefulness. If I had more like you, ah,”

 

He waved the thought away with his hands. It was a gesture uncannily like one Father Reilly used.

 

“When we have you all of the time, when I can train you properly – ”

 

John swallowed. “I wish it could be now. I could leave, what the fuck will they do?”

 

“Have policemen drag you back there. You’ve told me this yourself.”

 

John gripped his knees. “I want to do more.”

 

Bane stretched forward. John was anticipating a shoulder slap, some brotherly encouraging gesture, but instead he cupped John’s face and drew it nearer to his own.

 

“You do much. I find that I adjust my plans for you.”

 

His eyes slipped closed. Tipping his head forward in Bane’s grip, the feeling of those hands and proximity of his memories of that room began to hit him like a long drink.

 

“Bane. What happens if you’re arrested?”

 

Before his answer, he kissed John’s forehead.

 

“If I am picked up on a Monday morning, the paperwork will be ready for me by Wednesday afternoon. Passports and green cards are available, they are merely expensive.”

 

“You won’t be sent back?”

 

He looked at Bane’s face, wanting to get something that was both true and reassuring from those calm steel eyes.

 

“Their cages can’t contain me. Don’t you believe that by now? We can all have as much freedom as we are willing to take.”

 

“But – you’re not going to do anything that will make them, I mean, you’re not going to draw that much attention on May Day? Are you? It’s about the protest, the cause, right? I don’t, I mean, it’s not a good idea for you to stand out.”

 

“Surveillance, you mean?”

 

John nodded, not want to blurt out any more of his fears. Saying he was worried about Bane’s safety, it was the sort of weakness that kept him from The Fire. They would laugh if they could hear him now.

 

“You worry, my John.”

 

“I do, but you know. I would do whatever you needed to.” He started to crawl on to those broad thighs like he had a dozen times before. Whispering in to Bane's ear, “More than anyone. To keep you.” _Out of unnecessary danger. Out of sight. As mine._

 

Hands ran up and down his back. “I wanted to cure you of fear.”

 

“I’m never going to be like you.”

 

Bane twisted his head to kiss him.

 

“You never needed to be.”

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

John unmade the bedding for them and lay down in his underwear. Bane was up, closing down the computer, taking off his army boots, double-checking the lock on the door. He moved lightly, like a ninja. John admired how economical he was about everything, including motion – no one would know he was there if he didn’t want them to.

 

Bane took off his shirt, and John watched as the marred skin of his chest was lit up by the thin stream of sunlight coming in from the high windows. Bane never posed, never indulged any interest in his own body as anything but a tool. It made him so much more beautiful than the wrestlers that John used to harbor covert crushes on. He wanted to tell him, _wait_ , _take off your pants just there, by the wall, so I can see the shape of your thighs in amongst the shadows, so I can look at how your torso shifts down into your hips and way your back flows into the curve of your ass._

 

Instead he just nodded like a toy dog when Bane pointed to the old military medic’s kit by the bed. It had a compartment with condoms and lube, as well as the switch blade that he’d tried to give John as a birthday present (“We have metal detectors at school, Bane, and I’m not taking it to Mass”).

 

Bane raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“I want to,” John said.

 

“You sound sure.”

 

“Come on –”

 

Bane sat down, letting John curl around him and stroke his naked legs as Bane rifled through the box. “You know, we have yet to play much chess.”

 

“Don’t lie to me like you don’t have a boner.”

 

Bane reached around and slapped his ass for that. “I have never been a slave to my physical urges. I can stop right now.”

 

Smiling, John hugged around him tighter. He felt like the whole world would envy them if they knew what they had.

 

Closing the lid, Bane handed John the small tin and slippery foil packets. John flopped back and rested them on his chest as Bane stretched out next to him, their bodies making a winding, erratic line of contact.

 

Hands and lips moved to their favorite places, thickened biceps, narrow hips, necks, inner thighs. The tin slid off into the sheets as they picked up a rhythm. John felt extra sensitive to the noise they were making. It was like everything else had stilled in deference to them. He gasped as his chest was bitten over the breast bone, and realized that the constant thread of noise in own his head had broken. His rage had dissolved like it had been eaten by its own acid.

 

His fingers got busy. No way he wasn’t going to try and drag some embarrassing sounds out of Bane. Letting himself get a handful of ass for a moment, he slipped his wrists around to the front of Bane’s hips, making him buck back and give John wriggle room. His heavy cock had been rubbing little wet circles on John’s stomach next to his own, very interested, dick.

 

Lifting one hand to lick over it, he made quick work of rolling the foreskin down over the fat glans. John laughed with sheer outrageous pleasure when the rub of his thumbnail over his slit made Bane yelp. It was a trick he’d learned last time they’d been together, and he’d savored the memory of it during the long dry spell of being grounded.

 

Twisting up, John pushed his right shoulder down to let him cup Bane’s balls and tried to make his fumbles more motivating.

 

“ _Jesus Maria_.”

 

Blasphemy from Bane was very rare and always well-earned. It was followed by a vicious bite to the side of his neck, one that made his pulse jump. Broad lips sucked over it mercilessly, and John knew he’d have one hell of a hickey.

 

“Come on.”

 

John was good at obeying orders, and lifted his hips to have a folded towel shoved under them. He thought about how they would get messy all over it, and felt ridiculously, wonderfully dirty. Then he remembered that Bane diligently did his own laundry.

 

He kept laughing even when Bane pinched his balls. “Ow! Goddamnit.”

 

“Your focus is lacking.”

 

Craning his neck, he looked down to where Bane had moved himself between John’s askew legs.

 

“I assure you, sir, I am focused.”

 

“Hmmph.”

 

Jostling his wide shoulders between John’s pale thighs, he came up with the slim tin of greasy lotion. Taking big even breaths, John tried to stretch out from the hips, let his ribs expand and his whole torso unwind. It was like the yoga breathing shit Jo had tried to teach him to get him to calm down. Relax, everyone always said, let the feelings go. Except Bane - he understood how rage could be part of them, how it could be driven, not discarded. Not yielded to everyone else’s lack of patience.

 

Blunt fingertips ran lines up and down from under his balls to the small of his back. It felt good, he thought with conviction, better than anything school or church had ever given him. His breath halted in little harsh swallows as Bane swabbed the slick over his rim, breaching him with just a press of his thumb.

 

Fuck them, all of them, for thinking they knew what was best. For denying him this. His legs spread wider and he lifted his back higher. Only Bane had dared to try and show him this pleasure. To let find him peace inside of it.

 

He exhaled in a long gust with the first finger. It was close to painless, just divertingly awkward for his body, and his nerve endings were sending wildly different messages around. John pressed his eyes closed; the small amount of light in the room was suddenly too much for him. Everywhere their two bodies met he felt ten times stronger. Bane was whispering something, quiet words of praise, but John didn’t try to catch them – his cock was rock hard as it was, without the extra encouragement.

 

Bane curled his finger, wriggling it studiously, and kept John in place with his other hand. Another one pressed into him. John moved his hand to his stomach, instinctively shoving it down to alleviate the burn. Their fingers entangled, and Bane kissed over his hip bone.

 

“ _Bueno_ , John,”

 

His dry lips were drawn so tight he could feel them cracking. Those Spanish lessons felt like light years away.

 

Bane had him pull one of his knees to his chest, and then made John shriek when he licked at him in between his crooked fingers. Another finger, and he rocked his hips from side to side, making his body accept it. There were no questions left in John’s mind, only the single note of high-pitched desire. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from coming too soon

 

The muscles began to give in under the gentle persistence of Bane’s force, and soon he took his other hand off John’s belly and tossed him a condom.

 

“Open it for me.”

 

It took him a couple of tries with sweaty fingers. Bane grunted and withdrew his hand, wiping it on the towel. Straightening up on his knees he took it from John and rolled it over his girth. John watched wide-eyed. Bane looked at him as he squeezed at the reservoir tip.

 

“Always check.”

 

John must’ve looked blank, because Bane bent back and took his hand to feel along the length, now lined with extra lube.

 

“That it is on correctly. Your partner should never be cavalier about your safety.”

 

It took a few seconds for the words to make sense. John hadn’t expected a PSA during sex, but, then, Bane did seize any opportunity to educate. He nodded in response, half-smiling.

 

“I don’t want anyone else but you, you know.”

 

Bane looked serious, and leaned in to kiss him. “I appreciate your words for what they represent.”

 

That was too inscrutable for John to process at that point in proceedings. He hooked his legs around Bane’s waist and tugged him closer.

 

Hands grasped his hips in response.

 

“Over.”

 

“What? But I want to be able to touch you.”

 

Bane sighed and kept his grip tight. “You will feel me, make no mistake. This way is easier on your body.”

 

John snorted, but moved over to his stomach and rose to his knees

 

“Up on your forearms, spread your weight between your joints.”

 

One hand drew directions on his back, as the other delved down to his ass, flickering around the edges of his hole. John sighed with frustration.

 

“Please.”

 

“Focus.”

 

“Fuck your focus.”

 

A sharp pinch on his hip. “Behave.”

 

Settling into place, he breathed deeply, following the rhythm of the palms stroking over his back. He could feel heat pouring off Bane’s body, drops of his sweat landing down the plane of John’s lower back, and behind him Bane’s persistent fingers and the swell of his hard-on.

 

John pushed his hips back. Hands framed his ass, pushing the flesh aside to make room for the heavy cock that slid up his crack, then down, and angled in. It wasn’t an easy fit. John’s lungs struggled for air as he was stretched wider. Bane placed fingers on either side of his ass to take up any extra give, and with a few pushes, he had the head in. They both panted, John letting a strand of saliva fall from his mouth to the pillow. Some small part of his brain registered gratitude for the position he had been placed in. Bane already felt enormous inside.

 

The stroking on his back picked up again. It reminded John to breathe decisively. Inch by inch, he took more of Bane in, letting his interior accept the newness of it. It was like the feeling of running beyond the point of fatigue. He was suddenly awash with a new kind of energy, his skin tingling from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. He was, a thought brushed through him, giving in to a new power source and absorbing it. Dreamily, he let his mind float to memories of comic books where the heroes discovered the extent of their magical abilities.

 

All he had to do was breathe and push. Bane’s hands seemed to know the direction he had to follow, and he sighed long and sweetly above John as he withdrew and then slowly thrust in again.

 

The pace picked up, and somehow John’s body knew how to cooperate even though his limbs felt like they were made of water. As Bane’s motions grew more urgent the hot throbbing of John’s dick responded. The pressure built and built, John moaning with every push, until it overcame him.

 

He shot then, the pleasure longer and brighter than it had ever been before.

 

After that, the points of pain in his flesh were more apparent, but they only made a counterpoint to the echoing pleasure in his head. He was so much more aware of Bane – the force of his body, the size of him, the bitten-off groans, the intimacy of his scramble for his own release. With a handful of John’s ass clenched in one hand, the other planted on the mattress for support, Bane came.

 

John wasn’t prepared for the shift in sensation. It was not necessarily unpleasant, but odd.

 

Bane’s forehead rested briefly between his shoulder blades, then he said, “Prepare yourself,” and withdrew.

 

John didn’t know how he would have prepared himself, not having been in that position ever before. So he laughed out the lungful of air he’d been holding and collapsed down on his side.

 

He let his fingers trail down to feel where he’d been fucked. It was tender, but not worse than any muscle strain after a big workout. Thoughts crossed his mind with increasing frequency, as if he’d been woken from a long sleep and his brain was trying to catch back up. Between old dirty jokes in the locker room, things he’d heard in R-rated movies, hints in books and magazines, he had a vague bunch of ideas as to what it would be like. But those dumb suggestions had been so far from the reality.

 

Lying there dazed, he blinked at a light being switched on. Bane had gone somewhere, where? John watched as he unpacked another towel from a duffle bag and returned to the mattress. He didn’t make eye contact as he lifted the soiled one from the bed and used the fresh one to wipe come from where it striped John’s belly and pubic hair.

 

Not wanting to be the first to say something, especially something stupid, he stroked Bane’s head. It had been shaved down recently to his favored buzzcut style, which John loved to rub but was rarely allowed to.

 

Bane cleared his throat and looked up. “How do you feel?”

 

John just smiled, and let his fingers make small circles over Bane’s scalp. It was like petting a dog. He felt as if he could stay here forever.

 

Coming in closer, Bane walked his hands up either side of John’s arms.

 

“You are alright?”

 

“’Course I am. I feel pretty great. Don’t you?”

 

“Mmm.” Bane chewed his lip thoughtfully. It was an uncommonly nervous gesture. John felt so relaxed and yet hyperaware at the same time. He made a guess as to why Bane looked worried.

 

“It didn’t hurt me. You were very good – kind. I don’t feel anything bad. Sticky, I guess.” He reached his other hand up to frame Bane’s face. “Your first time was not so good, was it?”

 

Bane shook his head. It took a minute for him to speak.

 

“I was a pawn for men who wanted to display their power. I used to think they were trying to punish me. But they were merely cowards. It is of no importance.”

 

John remembered having been touched by men with small piggy eyes and how they masked their desire with discipline. It was a cold thing to him now.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“There is nothing for you to be sorry for.”

 

John shrugged. “You are, have always been, strong, I think. But I wish you had been able to be happier.” 

 

Bane turned to his side, his chest at John’s back. One arm looped over John’s ribcage.

 

“Happiness is not a sustainable goal. But I am glad for our pleasure.”

 

A large hand covered John’s heart, and he wondered if Bane could feel how hard it was beating. He said nothing, letting the air of the room grow quiet around them like ash falling from a fire. 

 

\-- 

 

“Blake! Blake! Hold up.”

 

Rodrigo’s voice pulled apart his name into two lumpen syllables. John didn’t need to be asked to hold up. He was waiting for his attendance record to be signed at the school desk. Though he’d managed to sneak into St Swithin’s after seeing Bane, he was still grounded, which meant that, as well as his class register, he had to sign in at the front desk, and Mrs. Talbot still took forever to fill in paperwork.

 

He had been standing there, wondering if it was some Catholic school hang-up that they still used pencil and paper for so much of the documentation, idly calculating how much memory would be needed to store the same data digitally. Rodrigo skittered around him at his usual high speed, grabbing at John’s sleeve to break his own momentum.

 

“My man! I’ve been looking for you.”

 

John stood as tall as possible. Rodrigo was about the same build as he was and couldn’t possibly hurt anyone with his skinny bean pole arms and legs, but he had one deadly weapon-his mouth. Guy was a gossip who landed in the center of many social groups without ever restricting himself to one. John had always liked him, and thought that he was smarter than he ever let on to the teachers, but had never been equipped to break through the hierarchal barriers to get into his friend orbit. It was the kind of thing that had once bothered him. Now he knew to be wary of smart kids with big mouths.

 

They both waited as Mrs. Talbot appeared at the office desk. She rattled the handle of a filing cabinet, gave up on it, moved two notebooks to the left of the phone, and then looked up at them. “Oh! Yes. Certainly. Your form.”

 

John gave her a tight smile as she dithered with the register. Rodrigo was tapping his foot, and John shoved him gently to make him stop. Mrs. Talbot could be distracted by anything at this point in the morning.

 

Eventually he got his signature and made for homeroom. Rodrigo was on his heels, yapping at him excitedly.

 

“So you’re the guy who has the 411 on the protest uptown today?”

 

“Never realized you were so interested in politics, Ortiz.”

 

“Absolutely, my man! Gonna run for office one day.”

 

The sheer joyful exuberance of his answer made John smile.

 

“Then, you don’t want to be at this one today. Most of the people there hate politicians, some think they should be eliminated.”

 

“What, taken out? Like a coup? _Pew-pew!_ ”

 

It was early, so John had time to slow down and have a drink at the water fountain. He wiped his chin and looked at Rodrigo, leaning against the wall and grinning back at him. He was like a miniature Florian, one unable to grow facial hair yet, and John decided to throw him a scrap.

 

“No. Anarchists – they want the system of government abolished. That’s just some of them, others simply want the system to be opened up to serve the people better. Others would just like to catch an occasional break from Wall Street and all the corporations crawling up our asses.”

 

“Watchit –”

 

Some kids were passing. John could be reported for swearing, which in his current precarious position meant a few more demerits and an extra week of being on a short leash.

 

“Thanks.”

 

“You don’t need the hassle. So, tell me, what are they all asking for?”

 

John copied his chipper tone. “May Day is the traditional celebration and fight for recognition of worker’s rights. It’s a time to reflect on those who fought for fair labor laws and demand for ongoing protection.”

 

“Damn, you sound like an infomercial.”

 

“I have a class to get to.”

 

Rodrigo clutched his sleeve again. “You have home room, homie, in like ten minutes.” He leaned in closer to John, and his voice dropped. “Who is Bane?”

 

John’s instinct was to back away. Instead he shrugged, dropping the act.

 

“You know who he is.”

 

Shaking his head, Rodrigo stayed close. “Nah, son, not like you do. I know you have mad connections with his crew, all those college girls hanging out at the gate for you.”

 

Malin would laugh at that. She’d dropped out of college years ago.

 

“And your other friends, they are people of action, not just the crusty hippies who hang out at that Lounge spot. Now, I hear a lot about Bane – that he’s a made man, that he’s a terrorist, that he’s a Fed – calm down, bro. I don’t believe it all.”

 

“It’s bull, Ortiz. Bane isn’t a narc.”

 

“You tell me, Blake.”

 

John shook his head. “He’s a leader, the one we’ve been waiting for. At the moment it’s just on the fringes-the potheads know he can hook them up, so they hang around, the college kids, the trustafarians come on down, but he’s working to organize people in the community. The gangster stuff–he just does what he needs to do for his people. But I’ve seen him kick out slumlords, get groceries for single moms, take in kids who’ve been on the block and finding them somewhere safe to sleep, getting them working in the kitchens, even planting gardens around.”

 

“I’ve heard about his crops.” Rodrigo mimed toking on a blunt.

 

“That’s just the cash supply, he doesn’t even smoke. Doesn’t much like his people to, either.”

 

Two thick eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You’ve seen him, huh? His face and everything? Maybe the stories about John Blake are true.”

 

“What stories?”

 

“Hey, cool it. Just that you don’t just go along to their parties. But that you’re in with The Fire. That you’re working for the gangbangers.”

 

John laughed dryly. “Sure I am, that’s why I have all these piles of money and diamond jewelry on. Seriously, do you really think The Fire would have anything to do with me? Those guys-and the girls, too–are hardcore. Militia. I stay away from that. I just go to some talks, listen, read.”

 

“You’d break curfew to go all the way over there to read?” Rodrigo’s tone was flat and disbelieving.

 

“It’s good stuff, Ortiz. I’ll lend you some anytime.”

 

With that he broke off and made for the classroom. The conversation had left him both angry at Rodrigo’s attempts to make drama for John, but also amused. Ortiz was a funny guy. A natural-born hustler. Maybe one day John would bring him in, when he had built a name for himself outside of being one of Bane’s pet projects.

 

The protest was today. It was a few hours to go, and all the way across town, but he felt like the air was charged with something different already.

 

On the bus going from St Swithin’s to school he’d seen some of the posters advertising the march stuck up. It reminded him of sitting at the kitchen table with Malin and Asha where they’d created the design. They reminded him that it was always possible to break down any barriers put between him and his friends, him and the cause. Him and Bane. Just a sticker on a street light could make a connection between them. Or looking the graffiti that had been bombed on the wall opposite the home. He’d heard the night warden quizzing the older kids about it, asking what it meant. The kids had just shrugged. Only John knew it was put there especially for him to see. Four feet high, in silver on a brick wall. It read, _The Fire Will Rise_. 

 

\-- 

 

It wasn’t just Rodrigo paying attention to John that day. In homeroom, two kids slipped him a note asking if he was protesting later. He looked askew at them, wondering what kind of trouble they were trying to make. Their faces were wide open and hoping.

 

He leant over and stage whispered, “Grounded.”

 

One of them mouthed back, “Sucks.”

 

John nodded. It did. It wasn’t going to stop him, but he wasn’t going to advertise that fact.

 

As they filed out to the hallway the pair of them bracketed him.

 

“We’ll be there, repping, so we’ll let you know how it goes.”

_Do you even know my name?_ John wondered. But apparently they did, because they waved over another guy and introduced him. “John, this is Billy. He’s coming with.”

 

John nodded as if he had any idea who these kids were. Billy smiled and threw up a fist in the air. He lowered it quickly as a teacher walked past in the other direction, and then he turned to face John. “It’s gonna be rad. I’ve never been on a protest march before.”

 

Trying to sound like an expert, John walked alongside them.

 

“Just stay cool, and don’t try to piss off the pigs. The Fire is going to be there to keep track of marchers.”

 

“Are they really going to take over the mall?”

 

“There’s going to be a sit-in, it’s not technically illegal to do that in the lobby.”

 

“Will there be a smoke-in?”

 

The others laughed. John tried to join in. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some of that, but it’ll be around the fringe. Remember, you don’t want to stand out too much. Don’t get separated from the pack.”

 

A hand clapped him on the back. “Totally blows that you can’t come. This is the best thing that’s happened in this town in ages. Thank god for Bane.”

 

There was a chorus of “Yeah, totally!”

 

John had to get out of this hallway. “I, uh, hope you enjoy it. How are you leaving?”

 

“Back of the gym, right after class – jump that low wall, then book it up Debden Street.”

 

That was fine, it might even help John if the three of them disappeared and took some of the attention away from him. He made his exit to History class, looking at the clock placed off-center above the blackboard.

 

One hour and twenty minutes to go.

 

\--

 

There was a window in one of the classrooms that let in the rain. It was marked up for repairs-“for only the last four years,” Mr. Jonasson would always say every time he taught a class in there. By midday, when John walked in, the room was empty. Old posters encouraging the reader to RECYCLE and explaining the lifecycle of a plastic bottle hung crooked, warped by condensation. A half-full bucket of stale rainwater sat under the window, which was unlocked. It squeaked horribly when John forced it the rest of the way open.

 

Swinging his legs, out he dropped down and made for the droopy sapling planted by the wall. It was far too weak to support him, but it was surrounded by a solid cage of metal. The kids used to joke that the tree was in jail, but it was in a good enough frame for John to stabilize on it to get over the wall and on to the deserted side street.

 

He ran north.

 

\--

 

Lyall Plaza was a public square stuck between two massive department stores. It was where the women’s collective against domestic violence had been thrown out for protesting three weeks earlier. Every poster, sticker, handout, and message board post about the Gotham May Day protest said that it would be centered here. The march would start downtown and go up past City Hall, ending at the square. By now, John reckoned, the Food Not Bombs stand would be up, the street musicians would have started playing, and there would be peace signs chalked all over the sleek red paving stones.

 

John wasn’t going to see the protest coming together. He was going farther uptown than Lyall. The maps in Bane’s room, the ones John wasn’t meant to have seen, had two different routes drawn on them. One was of the official march route through the business district; the other showed a smaller group going in a straighter line to a location on Bleecker Street and 4th Avenue. This was the area with tony upscale shops and the homes of rich people who could afford to shop there. _The decadent nests_ , Bane had called them in one of his afternoon meetings, _only theirs because we_ _continue to allowed their safety_.

 

Bane had marked on these maps plans that sent two-thirds of The Fire to this district coinciding with the time when the marchers would reaching Lyall Plaza. It gave them a three-block buffer between the police force, who would be attending a protest full of experienced activists and riled-up kids like Billy and his friends. John estimated that meant around forty of Bane’s hardcore followers would be arriving in the same location in less than half an hour.

 

After he’d seen the maps for himself, John had known he needed to ask Bane what he was planning. Had planned to, many times. The last time they’d been together at the hotel he’d been full of conviction that he should do it, that Bane would want him to. After the conversation about 85 and Down, he should’ve pressed the question. But his determination had melted away under the praise and touches and the promise of intimacy. The things Bane had told him afterwards seemed far more important than May Day. It wasn’t until later that his mind started up again, digging into his uncertainty and worrying over the lack of information.

 

There were, in his mind, several possible outcomes that were acceptable. Most likely, this was a secondary protest, and that was why Bane had made sure John would be either in school or with the hippies serving free food, in order to keep him from being culpable with whatever they were doing. John could understand that, even if it pissed him off.

 

He remembered very clearly what Asha had told him about the planning meetings with The Fire that he’d been forced to miss. The ideas for interventions – smoke bombs in the stores, burning CEOs in effigy, spraying paint on designer clothes – and the face she’d made recalling how loud and angry the discussion had been. “It’s always the same, at the beginning. People think that acting like assholes is going to convince anyone of anything.”

 

John knew enough about the people who were attending this secondary protest to know that they didn’t want to change anyone’s minds. The Fire always wanted to make a situation deliberately uncomfortable. But he hadn’t found a way to understand they were going to do there or why. Except for going there himself.  

 

He had looked up the co-ordinates of the meeting place that Bane had laid out. The street corner that The Fire was converging on didn’t seem to have any special political features that could be used in a protest. It didn’t have any iconic locations on it, just a fancy non-chain restaurant, a high-end motorcycle dealer, and the kind of small boutique stores that sold stuff John didn’t understand how anyone could need or want. There must be something else there, but he hadn’t had the opportunity to scout it out after being grounded.

 

For a couple of days, he’d even considered asking Andy and DeWitt if they would go out and look for him. Maybe they would come back with an obvious answer. John ran uptown, ideas and regrets streaming through his head.

 

Bane was his boyfriend, sort of. His lover? His leader. Bane always answered his questions. But John hadn’t been able to stop from looking at those maps, even though they were kept in a locked briefcase hidden under piles of books in the hotel room. It had been the case that he’d helped Bane stack the money in; John had memorized the combination without really thinking about it.

 

So he had found it, and looked inside. Because he wanted the knowledge – _information wants to be free_ – like he wanted everything about Bane to be inside him, all of his secrets and plans stored in John’s head, too, so that they would be even more connected.

 

And there were these maps. He’d seen similar ones, but only in Joshua’s hands, never shown to him by anyone.

 

John ran faster.

 

By the time he reached 260th Street he could see and hear the effect of the protest. Roads were blocked, and the sidewalks were busier than usual. As well as tourists and shoppers there was the presence of obvious marchers – ratty t-shirts, baggy jeans, holding signs and throwing sing-song phrases between themselves. They looked happy, and the civilians seemed to be ignoring them or looking amused.

 

John cut a corner to avoid the crowds. The streets he was now on were part of the blander business district, largely deserted aside from a few office workers taking smoke breaks. Waiting for a crossing signal, he glanced over and saw four members of The Fire stepping off the curb twenty yards away from him. Immediately ducking behind the traffic lights, he kept an eye on them as they threaded between waiting traffic and flipped off drivers. Laughing at the blaring honks they received, they moved to the next sidewalk and strode on northwards. They never glanced at John, who hung back for a minute, waiting to build up a distance between them. Back at the Lounge he’d talked to two of the guys, so they knew his face, and he didn’t need them clocking him now.

 

Because he’d looked in the case. And not ever told Bane that he knew what he’d seen on those maps. He wasn’t meant to be anywhere near here. That was the decision that Bane had taken the liberty of making for him.

 

John was sick of other people making choices for him.

 

When he finally reached the small walkway that linked to the street Bane had marked out as the meeting point, John stopped. Sweat stuck his shirt and trousers to his body. The noise of the traffic was quieter, and he could make out the faint sounds of cheering and music carried on the wind. The march was arriving at Lyall now.

 

The walkway was in cobbled stone, with hanging baskets at either end. A few people were drinking coffee at tables outside a café, shopping bags at their feet. John had never been inside a café. He made himself stop looking at it and tried to work out the best vantage point, suddenly noticing the movement inside a gallery opposite him. The members of The Fire who he’d seen earlier were there, one of them having a heated discussion with an assistant. Ducking to the side, John found himself near the center of Bane’s chosen location. The store he was next to had a deep awning, and he leaned against the wall, hoping no one would notice him watching from there.

 

From where he stood, he still couldn’t work out how this place could be so special to Bane’s strategy. Under Gotham’s wide blue sky all it held was a bunch of chi-chi shops and a few places where it would cost a fortune to eat. No political posters were strung up on the wrought iron fence that stretched between the children’s clothing store and the motorcycle trader. No statues to imperialist heroes stood on the corners. There were just some parked cars and light midday foot traffic. Apart from the unappreciative art fans stuck in the gallery, there was no one he recognized. Bane had to be near here – unless he had other plans, ones that John was too stupid to have noticed.

 

The explosion threw him off-balance and he fell to the concrete.

 

Coughing, he stayed on his hands and knees, his ears ringing. Dusty clouds bloomed in the street as people shouted, sounding scared and hurt. Staggering to his feet he watched the door of the gallery open and four people covered in black bandanas and hoods run out. They made straight for the source of the revving noise that was building. One threw a small object behind him, and John realized just before it detonated that it was another smoke bomb. Then the street was buzzing with the noise of revving motorcycles.

 

His hands on his face, he wiped his eyes. No grit had landed in them, but he didn’t want to see what they could just about make out. The motorcycle riders were slowing down and the gallery crew was climbing on the backs of the bikes to drive off. All the drivers wore tinted helmets, but John could still recognize Joshua’s leather jacket and Jo’s red scarf.

 

Bane was on the biggest bike. John wondered how he’d learned to drive it so well. He pulled around a tight corner and shot between two stalled cars, leaving the debris behind him.

 

Everyone around him was shouting now. The jewelry store owner was in the street, screaming something, and other people were offering to make phone calls, claiming that the police would be here soon. A baby’s howl came from the street behind John as he lurched away from the sight of the motorcycle dealer’s display window, flung out in a thousand pieces across the pavement.

 

If he could get to the plaza, he could warn the others to disperse. He didn’t know how he’d do it, but he had to make something calm and steady out of today. His legs moved with no apparent effort. It was his ears that did all the work, as he crouched low to dodge between moving cars and get closer to the protest, listening among the raised voices for someone he recognized.

 

Approaching the entrance to the first department store on the plaza, he heard the sound of breaking glass before his eyes made out a spiderweb of cracks growing outwards across the implacable faces of display mannequins. A hooded figure – Hazard, he thought, looking at her narrow, angled shoulders beneath the army jacket – pushed over a woman laden with shopping bags and then quickly scooped up her purchases from the ground. Faking a kick to the woman’s face, she backed away and headed towards the square.

 

A group of people stopped to help the fallen woman, and he heard their sounds of concern and outrage as he ran after Hazard. What he couldn’t hear was motorcycle engines.

 

He took the marble stairs that led to the central plaza two at a time. Usually Lyall was a manicured space designed for weary shoppers to sit and watch the decorative fountains. Now it was full of people, the sounds of shouting mixing in with music and the hum of conversation. Colorful banners curled up in the wind where they’d been dropped, and as he got closer John saw someone overturn a table covered in handouts which floated like leaves across the crowds trampling the grass. The first policeman he saw came up sharply behind the table pushers, grabbing them around the chest. A young girl wearing a headscarf was rooted to the spot next to them, her eyes widened with pure terror.

 

Someone slammed him sideways, and he pushed out of the way of a stream of people trying to flee. A guy he vaguely knew from the Lounge grabbed at his arm. He was wild-eyed and panicking. “They’re blocking the exits! We’re never going to get out!”

 

Shaking himself loose he climbed up a grassy slope to the higher ground where an ice cream cart was tipped over, abandoned. Hauling himself up on its side he looked over the square to try and grasp what was happening.

 

Three pedestrian entrances fed people into Lyall Plaza, and the department store’s heavy doors usually opened out to each side. By now those doors were barred, with people beating their fists against them – whether to intimidate the shoppers or to be asked to be let in, he couldn’t work out which. People were everywhere, and it was hard to see who was who anymore between protesters and bewildered shoppers. The parkside exit was clogged with crowds pushing out, as was the south side exit – reduced even further by the group of security guards who were pushing people back in. The biggest exit was the archway to John’s left, where he’d come in. He watched as a wave of people moved towards it, only to retreat backwards in one massive push. As they fled towards the inner square, he could see why. Riot police with immense plastic shields stepped forward. Some protestors threw themselves at them, only to bounce off and scramble back without pride, desperate not to be crushed.

 

It was too crowded to make out Hazard or any of her comrades. John knew it was beyond time to get out of there, and he jumped off the cart and ran back down the slope. There was a large bank of bushes on the edge of the park, and he could see people forcing their way through. He ran for it, watching an ox-like mall cop approaching and yanking out the legs of a girl who had half-climbed through.

 

Following what Bane had taught him, he went for the back of the guy’s knees. It was a short, sharp attack, enough to knock the guy off balance and make him let go of her calves. She let out a little yelp as John pushed her towards the gap, and she looked back at him blankly. The front of her shirt was pink, and it took John a second to realize that it was from her bloody nose dripping down her face.

 

“Up. Out. _Go_.”

 

It was all he could do not to throw her through the bushes. He could hear the guard gathering himself back up and shouting at them. Kicking out hard where his ankle was being grabbed, he pushed her in front of himself and they both tumbled down the concrete slope that banked onto the road.

 

She didn’t need any encouragement to run, fleeing from John and the square. He went in the other direction, expecting to be chased. This took him down the same streets he’d jogged through earlier.

 

The police were moving through, in cars and on horseback, and John quickly stepped into an alleyway to avoid the chaos on the sidewalk. Shop fronts were being quickly closed, with the sounds of metal gates being snapped shut clattering between the sirens and shouting. Without thinking too much, he climbed up a fire escape. A man opened a window from the third floor and told him to get the fuck off, swatting at his leg, but John was too quick. He got to the rooftop half a minute later.

 

John would watch the streets from the rooftops for hours. It took him a long time to make any progress, scrambling from wall to wall, making jumps on shaky legs, to get back to his neighborhood. A lot of that time was spent just observing, unable to do anything from where he was huddled, knowing that he might see a former ally and be asked to assist them, and not sure what he would do then. He saw women and children being knocked down, stores being looted, and punishments being handed out by self-styled vigilantes.

 

\--

 

Years later, at his interview for the Police Academy, the gruff cop across the desk asked John what had made him want to be a policeman. Up until then he’d been tongue-tied throughout his answers, feeling so close to his goal that he was half-convinced he’d mess it up, even after flying through the physical and competency examinations.

 

He started talking to the officer about the first night of the Gotham riots. Of how Father Reilly gathered them all in the dining room, because it had no windows, and got them to move the tables and stack their mattresses to bed down together in. Of how scared the little kids were, and what it was like those three long days of lockdown – and afterwards, for weeks, months, walking the streets and seeing all the broken glass and wreckage.

 

John left out the stories of police brutality that he knew were true, of the bruises on kids that had been put there by batons and not thrown rocks. He didn’t refer to the official reports, which had held the mismanagement of the force as partially to blame for the rapid escalation of the riots, or how so much of the civic money marked for rebuilding had managed to disappear from the places it was most needed and get funneled elsewhere. They all knew those stories, anyhow.

 

But he left out the part that no one else knew. That he had been missing from St Swithin’s dining hall that first evening until 8 pm. He’d gotten in by crawling back up through the laundry chute after finding the whole building locked. When he found the priest praying outside the hall door, Father Reilly had looked up at him in fear. For a second, the man looked at him as if he thought John was going to strike him.

 

Instead John fell to his knees and prayed alongside him. They never talked about where he had been, and he never prayed again in his life.

 

The officer running John’s interview was a veteran, and had been on patrol in Gotham for the riot. John, who had read every official account of those three days until the names were burned into his memory, recognized him from what had been the East Side division, who had been among the most criticized for unnecessary violence afterwards.

 

Commander Cooper would know who Bane was. Every cop who had been on duty that week knew who Bane was, as did most of the thugs, gangbangers, and reckless kids who ran the streets those long days and nights. It had been Bane’s intention to leave his mark. As well as stealing tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise, which had been quickly passed on to waiting fences, The Fire contributed to much more than that in public damage.

 

The much-talked about People’s Rising of Gotham that activists had been promised in return for assisting with Bane’s schemes never eventuated. The GCPD had come down on the protesters with fury, and the public outcry against the looters was furious and damning. The aftermath led to the arrest and dissolution of 85 and Down, as well as members of the Citizens for Active Resistance and various other groups hatched in the Data Lounge. The Fire dispersed almost immediately, some getting arrested, some hiding out for months, until the penny finally dropped and they realized that Bane wouldn’t be getting in contact after all.

 

Bane had activated his own backup plan and left the city. While his name was briefly on Gotham’s lips, the man himself was never spotted by a reliable source, and rumor had it that the powers that be never even had a photograph of him. Some of his graffiti tags were still around, screen-printed on t-shirts sold out of the back of vans at flea markets and worn by would-be badasses. John himself had painted over the large slogan that had been written opposite St Swithin’s, though occasionally he still saw variations of it scrawled on walls and pavements. But no one could ever tell you that they’d seen Bane, just that they knew a guy who knew a guy once who had. His real name, his background, like his appearance, left no traces in public records or most memories.

 

John knew all that. He also knew that long before the riots, Bane had been making plans to evacuate the city.

 

He knew it, because he’d once been part of them.

 

\--

 

“What if you have to leave here?”

 

John was standing up to get dressed. He had to return to St. Swithin’s and the world outside of the hotel, and leave Bane here. They had fucked right through nightfall and the sky outside the window was inky black.

 

Bane reclined, looking relaxed. It was a rare sight. Something close to a smile moved across his face. “There are many ways out of this city. I don’t need to carry much.”

 

“If you go, would you miss me?”

 

Bane looked up at him. “I would want you to accompany me.”

 

“Really?”

 

“There is a place for you by my side, John. We have always known that.”

 

_You bit me when we first met_ , John thought. _I knew nothing about what we could be together_.

 

Bane continued, “The code for the hotel door is the same number as a locker in Gotham Central Station. You can pick a locker, can’t you?”

 

In response, John bent to kiss him. He had never picked a locker, but he would learn how for Bane.

 

“And what’s in there? Keys to the kingdom? A new passport?”

 

“Just some contact numbers. Email addresses. Coordinates. Places I’ve identified as potentially safe. It would be tedious work, going through all of them, to find a person who didn’t want to be found.”

 

“Detective work, you mean.”

 

Bane cupped the back of his head, rubbing a thumb along the nape of his neck, and told him his destiny.

 

“You would be good at that, John Blake. You always find out everything, even the parts that you do not want to know.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to azephirin, khaleesian, and zjofierose who all helped tremendously with this story. Any errors are all mine.


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